its highest relish, and affords to virtue the strongest every one, that it would have a peculiar charm when support and encouragement. I shall conclude, there-used by a person who might happen to be in such a prefore, with the sentiment with which I began, "quâ a dicament. And taking the thing in this light, and putDiis immortalibus nihil melius habemus, nihil jucun- ting myself for a moment in the shoes of the fair young dius." fiancée who has just set the seal to her letter, I would expound or explain the motto upon it, something in this MISPAH. way: O what can sooth the sorrow, love, This anxious absence brings, With overshadowing wings, O may he still our guardian be, And watch, my love, o'er me and thee, And bring thee back, all perils past, CHARACTER OF CORIOLANUS. A late writer tells us, that being on board the packet ship Silas Richards, on his way from New York to Liverpool, the captain one day opened the letter bags in the round house, to sort the contents; and to amuse the passengers standing about him, read aloud some of the most singular superscriptions, when he came to a letter which had a seal with an epigraph on it which ran thus: "Mispah-Gen. xxxi. 49." "Here," said he to a clergyman by, (the writer himself, I suppose,) "this is for you to expound." But the clergyman not being able to do so, ran for his Bible, and soon returning with it open at the place referred to, read out, "Mispah: the Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another." "Beautiful!" said one. "Beauti- Coriolanus possessed those traits of character, which ful!" said another. "A gem! a gem!" exclaimed a in an unpolished age, and amongst a people so renownthird. "A gem indeed!” cried all together. "Anded for their chivalry as the Romans, are fitted to comsurely," adds the writer, "the brightest, most precious gem of all, was to find, in such a place and circle, these prompt and full-souled expressions of sympathy on this announcement of religion and christian piety. There were, indeed, powerful tendencies to such sympathy in the circumstances of us all. For who present, whether going to or from his home, did not feel himself separated from those he loved, and loved most dear? And who, with a wide and fitful ocean before him, tossing on its heaving bosom, would not feel his dependence, and looking back or forward to home and friends, lift up his aspirations to that high Providence who sits enthroned in Heaven, and rules the land and sea, and breathe to him the sweet and holy prayer-'The Lord watch between me and mine, while we are absent one from another ?' mand universal admiration. Of high birth-of a frank, ingenuous nature-wise in the council-chamber, as he was ardent and intrepid in the field, it would have been strange if he had not soon won his way to the esteem and confidence of his countrymen. Accordingly we find him, after having signalized his name by a series of the most brilliant exploits in a campaign against the Volsci, returning to Rome, to receive in the gratitude and applause of his fellow-citizens, the reward of his heroic deeds. But neither the fame of his splendid successes, nor his own intrinsic dignity, could exempt him from the reverses of fortune. The chaplet with which the fickle goddess one moment decks the conqueror's brow, the next she snatches away, and leaves him the wretched victim of disappointed ambition. Thus was it with Coriolanus. The Tribunes of the People, those infaThese reflections are all just and natural enough;mous panders to the morbid appetites of the mob, findbut they are, perhaps, a little too vague and indefinite. ing it necessary to sacrifice him, the panoply of virtue At least, they do not strike me as quite true to the text. proved a poor shield against their virulence. Taking For the word "watch" here does not mean simply pro-advantage of that hauteur of which there was certainly tect, but rather witness, and Laban's idea when he said "Mispah," was, "may the Lord stand witness, and look out to guard against any infraction of the covenant which has just been made between us." So the author wanders a little from the point of the thing. And he does so again when he proceeds to ask, "And whose was the hand that fixed this stamp of piety on this winged messenger of love-of love that grows more ardent and more holy as it is distant and long away from its object? The first post-mark was Quebec, and the let-ence of the tribunes with the people was unlimited, ter was directed to a quarter-master in London. Was it then, from a wife to a husband? or from a sister to a brother? or what was the relation?" Obviously, such a seal could be used with strict propriety only by one who either was, or was engaged to be, married, to the writee, and who might very nicely use it at once to assure and remind the absent partner of that conjugal, or connubial fidelity which they had vowed before God. At any rate, it must be felt, I think, by a spice too much in his composition, they very dexterously managed to excite him to expressions of contempt for the commons, on the one hand, and, on the other, to inflame their minds with a sense of imaginary wrongs, and impress upon them a conviction, that if they would not be trampled in the dust, they must dispute every inch of ground with the Patricians, and omit no opportunity to strike a blow at a class of men they were taught to consider their natural enemies. As the influ so their success was complete their machinations resulting in the condemnation of Coriolanus to perpetual exile. Alas, that we have to deplore that the magnanimity this great man had so often exhibited, should desert him in the hour when most he needed it! Stung to madness that his distinguished services to the state should meet so base a return, he resolves, in an ecstacy of resentment, that Rome shall suffer the meed of her dark ingratitude. He goes over to the enemy, who receive him with open arms, and signify their readiness | sity, the unbending rigor of reason sternly refuses to to do his bidding. An army is placed at his disposal, allow any moral excellence to those deeds, or to insult with which he invades the Roman territory, and rava- the majesty of virtue by assigning them as her offging the country as he passes along, at length draws up spring. We return, however, to a point temporarily his legions within a few miles of the city, prepared, in merged, in order to follow up another branch of the the event of a refusal to comply with his harsh and ex-argument. The principle of revenge is wholly, and travagant requisitions, to whelm friend and foe in one indiscriminate ruin. Seized with consternation at his sudden and unexpected approach, the Romans sue for mercy. Successive deputations, consisting of the friends who had fought at his side in battle, and of the principal citizens who had stood by him when the decree was passed for his unjust and cruel banishment, are in vain sent to intreat him to lay aside his unnatural rebellion. Nothing can move him until, his wife and mother coming out to the camp, and throwing themselves at his feet, he reluctantly grants to their prayers and tears the amnesty which all feebler considerations had not availed to obtain. under all circumstances, inadmissible. Nor is it a proper reply to this proposition to say, that ours is an age of moral and intellectual light, and that it is unjust to apply to one who lived two thousand years ago, the same rigid rule of judgment to which he would be subjected at the present day. In the trial of questions involving an abstract principle, there should manifestly be but one standard for all ages and nations. Any other hypothesis will lead to the most glaring absurdities. For if the moral quality of an action could be modified by the unimportant circumstances of time or place, there is no crime in the decalogue which may not be justified. Modern heathen nations almost universally allow polygamy; in certain portions of the world murder is deemed innocent; and the ancient Spartan, we know, regarded theft as the prince of virtues. Where is the man who would presume to excuse these practices because they pertain to a barbarous nation, or Now suppose, for a moment, that the reprobation which the Christian code of morals pronounces on the principle of revenge, be laid out of view; and let it be granted that Coriolanus had a right to retaliate on the men who had so deeply injured him; yet how shall we excuse the design he meditated of involving his inno-to a period of moral darkness? Yet may it as well be cent friends in the same heavy penalty? When he was banished, it was by a majority of only three tribes. The whole body of the Patricians were in his favor, and profoundly sympathized in his calamity; and he must have foreseen that if the Volscian soldiery, the ancient and uncompromising enemies of Rome, were admitted into the city with Aufidius, his co-equal in command, at their head, that nothing sacred or venerable would be spared by their rapacious violence-that the rights of property, the quiet and security of old men, the purity of virgins and matrons, and the sanctity of temples-in a word, all that age, or innocence, or religion had consecrated, would be made the inevitable victims of the same ruthless invasion. And all this he contemplated unmoved. Surely, in the very conception of an act implicating, in such tragical consequences, not his enemies merely, but his friends also, and those who should have been dearer to him than his own life—his family and kindred-there was a monstrous perfidy from which every mind that has not been too deeply corrupted to appreciate the force of any moral motive, must revolt with horror. But it may be asked, "How can Coriolanus be justly charged with the crime of those consequences which his clemency prevented?" In estimating character, the man who has once evinced the inveterate malignity of his heart, must be branded with eternal infamy, unless it appears that he subsequently became penetrated with profound contrition, and changed his conduct from the purest and most virtuous motives. Was this true of Coriolanus? Having contemned the higher claims of his country, and thrown off her allegiance, his ultimately yielding to the yearning voice of natural affection was a weakness—an amiable weakness, it may be said-but still a weakness. Such is our mental conformation, that we behold a congruous character with a done, as to justify the practice of revenge in the case There may be glory in the might When evil passion boweth down In his contempt of this sentiment consisted Corioladegree of complacency, even though the character be anus' great error. Alas for his fame, that he had not bad one; and although we may lend a measure of our sympathy to those good acts of confessedly bad men, which are the mere gratification of a physical propen discerned its truth and acted accordingly! MR. EDITOR,-Reading the "Belles of Williams-works of Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and the other lights burg" in your July number of the Messenger, induced of antiquity (the heralds, they have been called, of the me to search amongst some old papers for the enclosed graphical and beautiful lines, which though not written at quite so early a period as 1777, will serve to show that in 1799 the halo of refinement and wit was still shining around that classical spot so famed in Virginia history. BEAUTY TO THE P. BEAUX OF WILLIAMSBURG. Gallants! who now so brisk and gay As if you ne'er could tire, Can beauty only warm your heels? Have Phoebus and the sacred Nine Been banished from their wonted shrine Though sacrifice be made? Gods! shall Amanda pass unsung? No kindred effort raise? Shall gentle Mira's sparkling eyes, Shall twenty other Nymphs beside Of Time so swiftly flowing, That they were worth the knowing? Should Valentine's once blythesome day Like some dull Sunday morning, BEAUTY. PHILOSOPHY OF ANTIQUITY. true cross) languish here and there on the shelves of some old library, or in the shop of some antiquarian Bibliopole. There is this remarkable difference between philosophy and the lighter literature of antiquity. Homer and Herodotus, Demosthenes and his fellow orators, flashed out, as it were, from the bosom of the people with no warning-no precursor, and first established that order or sequence of literary cultivation which the experience of subsequent ages has proved infallible; I mean first, poetry and eloquence-next, history, and last of all, philosophy. Philosophy itself was no child of the moment. As the sea-beach gains something as each wave rolls over it, so was it with philosohpy. Each age made its deposit at the bank of truth, and slowly and imperceptibly, but with not less security, was that mountain raised, which, however wildly raged the storms of the middle ages-how much so ever its fair face was obscured-still never ceased to exist, but served as a place of rest to the weary bird of literature, a rest whence the yet callow philosophy and unfledged history might wing their infantine flight. We may give an era to history for there is great difference between it and tradition-we may positively ascertain the first poet, but we cannot approximate to the first philosopher. Socrates is not the only sage who never gave his lucubrations to posterity, and we learn from its very name, (love of wisdom,) that it is coeval with mind, nay, almost one of its principles. Were we to treat as philosophy only what has been written, we should be forced again to bound our researches by what has descended to us, and short indeed would be our course; but it is not so. We know with as much certainty the opinions of those who never wrote, as we do those of Plato and his followers, and are thus able to trace philosophy ab ovo usque ad mala, from the alpha not to the omega, for that has not been reached, but to the point at which we find it now. Philosophy first presents itself to the historian about the commencement of the sixth century. The country where we first behold it, is Asia Minor; beneath its warm climate the Grecian colonists, who from time to time had settled there, grew day by day more and more cultivated, till at length they were the tutors of their father-land. Thales of Miletus, Pittacus of Mytelene in Lesbos, Bias of Priene flourished in a quick succession, while as yet Hellas had produced but Solon, who was more lawgiver than sage, and who would better be associated with Lycurgus than with Thales. The philosophy of Ionia was echoed back with increased vigor from Magna Grecia. It is customary for the imagination, when Italy is its theme, to fly back to the days of Rome-to revel with Horace and with Cicero, with Virgil and Macanas. How great so ever may be our veneration for those later ages, they should never blot out from memory Italy's earlier civilization, when Apuleia and Brutium were seats of learning instead of Tuscany, and when Pythagoras was master of its Of all the benefits that modern times owe to anti-philosophy instead of Cicero and Seneca. quity, the most important but at the same time the least often acknowledged, is the boon of philosophy. The poets, orators, and historians of Greece and Rome are in the hands of every school-boy, and are the pleasure and study of all who pretend to education, while the NO. I. The point de depart of philosophy was the origin of the world and its elementary principle. Perhaps it was necessary that the mental machinery should first be employed upon the grosser matter ere it should seize hold of that most delicate of all materials, mind--that the artillerymen of logic should first acquire skill in attained with labor; we may then judge how great was battering to pieces erroneous opinions on natural phi-that philosophic spirit which prompted its possessor to losophy ere his piece should be directed against errors so long and painful voyages, and how strongly circumin ethics and psychology. Its modus operandi was, stances favored him, turning even apparent obstructions generally, that of empiricism. This is in a degree true into favorable events. For another paper we reserve of all from Thales to Plato. the philosophy of Pythagoras. As the astrologers and alchemists of all ages, so did the philosophers of the time of Thales. Though arguing on correct bases, they obtained the most improper results. Pushing their analysis beyond the bound of reason-not content with the phenomena of matter, of which experience has taught us more than suffices for the mind of man, they sought to discover the arcanum, the hidden principle of the world's existence. They failed of course, and it is a humiliating though not less instructive task to glance in succession at the varied, though not less incoherent, labors of those great spirits who, notwithstanding that absurdity which belonged more properly to their age than to them individually, yet emitted occasional glimpses of what we in vain would hope had led to better results. According to Thales the principle of the world is water. He is said to have been induced to adopt this, in consequence of some partial experiments. There was besides another principle, prime mover of all things, which he called nous. To him we are indebted for that best and most ancient of maxims, Know thyself. Friend and townsman of Thales was Anaxamander. He lit his lamp at the same light and cast its blaze on the same subjects. His point de depart is infinity, which he surnamed all-containing and divine, without determining it more precisely. Perpetual changes of earth and of things can take place in infinity. These were his principia, but from them he developed multitudes of doctrines which it is not now important to examine. He bent his attention to astronomy, and nearly similar were the doctrines of Pherecydes of Syros. He called his trinity of principles, God, time, and matter. He attempted to explain animated bodies and mankind. He considered the soul as imperishable. Anaxamander and Pherecydes were the two first philosophers who wrote their doctrines out. Now bursts on us a genius of the most astounding kind-Pythagoras. Mighty as was his fame-great as the influence he exerted on posterity-Homer-like, it seems his doom was to have "no place of burial or of birth." Iamblychus, in his life of Pythagoras, makes him appear even from his infancy a sage and a philosopher. Where he was instructed-how-by whom-we know not. There are accounts that he travelled far and wide in search of science, studied among the Egyptians for twenty-two years, and travelled so far as to meet and converse with the Indian Gymnosophists. His life was a varied one-now persecuted from town to town-now a prisoner at Babylon. With the sages of Egypt he doubtless there met with, and imbibed a portion at least of that God-revealed doctrine, which we have reason to believe had sent some glimmerings of its glorious radiance to Babylon, the Rome, the Athens of the East. In our days, when the genius of the press flits from clime to clime--when distance is annihilated, it seems a small matter to us to study the philosophy, to pour over the lucubrations of distant lands; but it was not so then. Each dogma was learned with difficulty and THE GIRL OF HARPER'S FERRY. Ah! tell me not of the heights sublime, Who climb'd with me to yon highest peak- She sailed with me o'er the glassy wave Or the voice which rang so merry? I saw not Heaven above, nor Earth- We clamber'd away over crag and hill Through places dark and dreary; My girl of Harper's ferry. I followed her up the "steps of stone" She carv'd her name on the well known rock, You would not have thought me a stone or stock Hurting her fingers fairy, Ye who shall visit this scene again, This rock at Harper's ferry, THE KIDNAPPER'S COVE. river just below it, which he pointed out as the "Kidnapper's Cove," thus designated from a remarkable circumstance which once happened there. "But," said own mind, I will begin with the "Rock of Sacrifice," and tell you what the Indian legends relate of both. I have always felt deeply interested in the past history of the Aborigines of our country; and with a plea-he, "as both places are inseparably connected in my sure amounting to enthusiasm, embrace every occasion of retracing the annals of that once noble and heroic, but now degraded and scattered race. Who that has any taste for the wild and picturesque, would not love to roam along the Susquehanna, and call up the associations with which its leafy forests are rife? They were once the favorite hunting grounds of the numerous tribes of Indians, belonging to the empire of the Five Nations, whose sway extended over every mountain, plain and river, from Champlain to Carolina. The tradition is, that only six warriors escaped the murder of their people; and not wishing to survive the fall of their nation, sacrificed themselves on this spot to the god of vengeance, believing they should be permitted in the land of spirits to behold the day of just retribution on their murderers. One of these chiefs was known by the appellation of the "Spread Eagle," from his power and majesty. He was a famous chief; his word in council, and his arm in war, were alike irresistible. He was the friend and ally of the whites. He said, "they are wise, they will teach us their arts, there is room enough for us both, let them fell the trees and till the soil, the wilderness stretches to the great waters, our young men can follow the chase, and our old ones learn to grow a great nation. Our white brethren must dwell among us." His counsel was followed, and mutual amnity established between the two races. At length the rapacious thirst for gain fomented discord, and the Indians were assailed and murdered in cold blood. The Spread Eagle, by his wonderfully muscular strength, fought through the enemy, bearing two children (the only remaining members of his family) on his shoulders. He fled to the habitation of Colonel Carlisle, who in the general defection had maintained the cause of the persecuted Indians. His confidence in this tried friend, while all around was treachery and bloodshed, wavered not; and he rushed through the infuriated crowd to the covert of his protection. Exhausted by exertion and mental anguish, he had scarcely reached the door, when he beheld his murderers in close pursuit. Darting forward with a last effort, he I set out upon my summer ramble, attracted by the feelings I have mentioned, to visit scenes of so much traditionary interest; and being unacquainted with the topography of the adjacent country, I sought out one of its oldest settlers in the hope of obtaining a guide, and some information respecting the most remarkable relics of the past. I was so fortunate as to fall in with a real old forester, one who loved nature in her wildness, who had trod her labyrinths of shade ere the woodman's axe was heard clearing the way for rising villages and busy factories. I found him animated with antiquarian zeal, with a memory filled with stories of by-gone days, and a spirit of poetic fervor, which could re-people every spot with living images of the wild beings who had there fulfilled their mysterious destiny. He readily offered to be my guide in Indian antiquities, and we set out on our pilgrimage; Oliver Oldham (thus was my cicerone called) beguiling the way, now with a story, now with a song of ancient time, suggested by this well-remembered pass, that over-hanging rock, or steep waterfall. All was animated, all interesting, on the tongue of this old narrator. He carried me back to the days when the Indians and the white settlers were united in bonds of amity and love; when the un-threw his children at the feet of Carlisle, exclaiming, suspecting red man showed no dispositions but those "is there mercy, is there faith, in the heart of one white of the most friendly and confiding nature, towards the man?" "Fear not,” replied the voice of his protector, race before which he was so soon to disappear, and from "I will defend you from every assault of your enemies." which he was fated to receive such injuries. He re- The Indian's emotion was overwhelming. He vented traced the history of aggression, and related several inci- not in words the deep feelings with which his heart was dents of harrowing barbarity, in which the power of our torn, but his large chest heaved with the inward strugrace was perverted to oppress and finally to crush our gle. After a few moments he became tranquil, and utancient friends and allies. My mind retaining some his-tered his determination in a few brief words-"Carlisle, torical recollection of the massacre of the Conestogo my people are gone-their blood dyes the ground-the Indians by the white inhabitants of Pextang, I request-smoke of their wigwams darkens the sky-I will not ed my companion to proceed towards the site of that an- stay to see their ashes scattered by the wind-I will cient settlement. As we advanced, we saw nothing to re-join my brothers in the spirit-land-see you yonder rock? mind us of the first masters of the soil, save the magni-It points upwards. To night its blaze will tell that the ficent features of nature, still bearing the appropriate last Conestogo chiefs have gone to call down vengeance epithets of their language. The mighty voice of the on their murderers. The Great Spirit drinks the blood Susquehanna still roaerd through its breakers, and the of the brave, but he calls not for the death of the dark form of the Black Warrior lifted itself on high. young, they must live to do deeds of glory. Carlisle, Having arrived at the supposed spot of the cruel mas- your children have sported with mine on the brink of sacre, Oliver gave me a short history of the war-like and the roaring stream-let them roam together until ten generous tribe who once inhabited the extensive and winters have stripped the leaves off the trees: then, my flourishing settlement, lying between the Susquehanna children, mind the course of the sun-he rises in the and Conestogo creek. Among the rocks and fastnesses east, but he goes down in the west-follow his path to which it is said the Indians fled for refuge in the ge- until you find the home of the red man. Arrow foot neral destruction of their tribe, he particularised one, and Caraola, my children, remember the words of your called the "Rock of Sacrifice," with which, he remark- father. Make not your home with the white man-get ed, there was a singular tradition connected; and ano-far away from him, but shed not his blood-you have ther story of still deeper interest, with a bend in the eaten of his bread, and slept by his fire: die sooner VOL. II.-94 |