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Bourbons. But the talent with which the ma- | phors are so like the figurative language of terials are managed is entirely his own. The Euphuism, that any one who knows and propermost obvious proof of this conjecture arises ly detests it in the extravagant compositions of from the frequent mangling of Spanish names. certain Italian and Spanish Poets, feels an inLe Sage must have been often puzzled by the stinctive dislike to many passages of ShaksSpanish hand, in words which are either form- peare, merely from that external resemblance. ed according to no general analogy, or express But the difference between the Bombast of the such allusions as must escape a foreign- former, and the true and natural richness of er-especially one who (as it is ascertained) the English Poet, is immense. The two had never been in the country. I cannot guess, styles have nothing in common except the for instance, what word he distorted into La Novelty of the Figures. The Euphuist Cosclina, the name he gives to the gipsy, the seeks that Novelty blindly, rashly, extravamother of Scipion; but any Spaniard will in- gantly: Shakspeare finds it without effort, unstantly perceive that the combination of s, c, 1, der the Inspiration of his Genius. His Metais repugnant to his language. There are nu- phors are full of the truest and most vigorous merous instances of this kind. Le Sage's Life. He shows you the secret ties of Relamind might have for its symbol a snake, agile, tionship by which Nature connects the, appaflexible, smooth, and cold, with a great readi-rently, most distant notions. But it must be ness to use its sharp teeth. He had no sense of beauty whatever-either physical or moral. There is not a description of scenery in the whole work: his female beauties are slightly described, and just so far as to be made appétissantes. Virtue, to him, is an accident arising from circumstances; and he is anxious to caution his readers that it is a most dangerous and, after all, a most useless thing in the world. The moral of the whole work is-Be a clever villain. I shall carry a thorough hatred of Gil Blas to my grave."

confessed that he fails in a few instances, and runs into the Bombast which, in his time, had begun to corrupt the Taste of all Europe. Here, as in all cases of superstitious Veneration, the blind Worshippers will stop their ears and cry,-Heresy! Such want of Discrimination, however, shows that the Taste, of which such people boast, is more Profession than Reality. Much indeed has been written on Shakspeare; but I conceive that there is still room for-or rather a real Want of-a work to guide the young Mind in the Study of his Plays-I shall probably be laughed at

We will now extract a few remarks on when I say that I think I could write such a Shakspeare:

"It is curious that my Admiration of the great poets has regularly increased with Age. This especially happens to me in regard to Shakspeare. When I came to England, though to a certain degree I had spoken the Language of the country from Childhood, I did not understand it sufficiently to enter into the spirit of Shakspeare's Plays. Neverthe less there were in them Characters, and passages, which I admired, and which, by their peculiar attraction, brought me constantly back to those Compositions. Without making his dramatic Works a peculiar Study, at any time, I have never dropt them for any considerable period. The Marks in my old little Copy prove this. Unfortunately I had it originally only stitched; and upon getting it bound many of those Marks were pared off with part of the Margins: else I could show the progress of my Approbation by the gradual addition of the parallel lines, which I have long used as a Sign of liking a Passage. For a person whose usual Standard of Taste has been the ancient Classics, especially if (as it happened to me) he has studied the French Writers anterior to the Revolution, the stumbling-block in Shakspeare is found not so much in the want of the Unities, as in the novelty and boldness of his Metaphors. It requires a perfect familiarity with the living World of the Poet's imagination, to perceive, at once, the Analogies from which his Metaphors proceed. | In external Character and Form those Meta

work.-Let the scorning doubt continue: I am
not likely to make the trial. ** Last night,
just before going to bed, I opened Hamlet, and,
reading on for awhile, came to one of the most
beautifully tender, as well as original illustra-
tions, which can be met with in any Poet. It
had never struck me in the same degree it did
this time. The Genius of Shakspeare seems
to have dropt a Simile of the greatest beauty
almost unconsciously, as the Queen of the
without much thinking when, where, or how.
Fairies would drop a pearl of immense value,
It is the begining of Laertes' leave-taking
Speech to Ophelia.

For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favor,
Hold it a fashion, and a toy in blood;
A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent; sweet, not lasting;
The perfume and suppliance of a minute;
No more.

The simile is so appropriate, and yet so novel;
it is so full of Tenderness and Life, that I can-
not well express all I feel in its Presence."

We have, too, a clever criticism, whether right or wrong, on Wordsworth :

"I have just now received the last two volumes of Wordsworth's Poems, stereotyped edition. My efforts to find out that extraordinary excellency which W.'s friends would proclaim in the tone of a Crusade against the infidels who do not think with them, have been repeated and sincere; but I remain still a

over

appears to have been at last; with this only difference, that what he named Infidelity or even Atheism, while within the Church of Rome, he denominated Christianity after he forsook the Church of England. Even with the Unitarians, whom he nominally joined, he had little in common, as his correspondence with Dr. Channing, Professor Norton, and George Ripley abundantly shows. They were all willing to claim more validity for the Imagination than he was willing to concede. Any system of opinions may be called Christianity upon the plan adopted by Mr. Blanco White. The logical formula of it is this:

true; therefore my opinions are Christianity." These opinions, we repeat, continued substantially the same throughout all his transitions from sect to sect. The modifications they received were merely superficial. From the defects of his education, and the accidents of his position, Mr. Blanco White had, unfortunately, accustomed himself, like many of his country

heretic. In this extensive collection there are indeed compositions of a very high merit: but there is also a great mass of things which, though scarcely ever without some merit, may be said to be published by an act of wilfulness, and for no other reason whatever. Wordsworth has been spoilt by a coterie who, having formed a joint-stock company of wit (wit in the old sense) at school, have carried on its concerns with the most inflexible perseverance. By admiring and praising each other for half a century, they have, as it were, dunned a great part of the public into their interest. Whatever, therefore, owing to habit, to early friendship, to association with the scenery among which the poet has spent his life,-nay, with his wife and children (all of whom, I hear, are amiable)-whatever, I say, revives in the Truth is Christianity: my opinions are Poet's friends any pleasant recollection, be it even the most childish baby-rhymes, produces delight; and that delight is proclaimed the country, through Papers, some way or other, in their interest. To those who have not such associations, the Collection in six volumes is exceedingly fatiguing. One is angry almost at every other page, and yet there is so much that makes one respect the writer, that there is no avenging the annoyance by throwing the book away. But, in regard to myself, the most unpleasant result of read-men, to disguise his sentiments; he felt it ing a considerable part of this collection, page irksome to do so, but he did it; and waited after page, is the incessant perception of until it was quite convenient to throw off the something like a wailing note, uninterruptedly cloak. This he did, both with the Church sounding, with no other change but that of Rome and the Church of England. His which arises from its approaching not unfrequently to a howl, like that of a man under the impression of inspiration, at the sight of sin. This mental drone-pipe is to me intolerable. 'Wail, wail, daughters of the English Jerusalem, for all men are not priests, and all the world is not Tory; there are still wicked men who do not think Buonaparte a fiend incarnate. Woe, woe! Woe to the Church, Woe to the Constitution! In a word, Mr. Wordsworth is too frequently a party poet, and not a small part of his inspiration comes from fanaticism. "P. S.-If a good musician took it into his head to write down every thing he whistles to himself, or to his children-every idle voluntary which comes up when he sits at the piano, he would produce a collection of music similar to that of Wordsworth's poetry. I do not deny

that if the musician were as eminent in his art as W. is in his, there would be many excellent pieces in the collection; but it would contain a great quantity of trash."

apology is, that he was incapable of seeing in either case, à priori, the evils inherent in these establishments; that he had to discover them by experience; that when he had made the discovery, he struggled to get himself free from contracts into which he had been deluded; and that it was a still longer time before he was satisfied of the conclusion that such evil belongs to all institutional churches. The decision of Mr. Blanco White's honesty depends on the assumption of this as a fact; whether it be so or not, fortunately not having been the keeper of Mr. Blanco White's conscience, we are unable to form a judg

ment.

The impression which we have received, on a perusal of these volumes, is, that the MONUMENT TO THE MEMORY OF COLUMBUS.opinions of Mr. Blanco White were equi- From Turin, we hear that the king of Sardinia distant from those of all religious parties has subscribed 50,000 livres, and the French govwhatever. We have, that is to say, failed, ernment 1,000 francs, towards the monument as we hinted at the beginning, to find in about to be erected at Genoa, to the memory of the epochs of his destiny the growth of his Columbus, and that it is intended, if possible, to be ready for its inauguration on the 15th of Sepintellect. There seems to us to be no evo-tember, 1846,-the day when the Congress of lution-but what he was at first, that he Italian Savans will open at Genoa.-Athenæum.

THE PILGRIM FATHERS.

From the British Quarterly Review.

This interesting and valuable article is from the pen of Dr. Vaughan, the worthy Editor of the British Quarterly.-ED.

History of the Colonization of the United States. By George Bancroft. Vols. i. ii. iii. Boston and London.

with little more difficulty than the order of a court ceremonial. But the policy intended to secure an abject submission at home, became the unwilling parent of an enlightened independence abroad. Intolerance of freedom forced it upon new experiments, and proved eminently favorable to its development and power. The seed cast out found a better lodgment, and sent forth a richer fruit. The new world afforded space for its germination amd growth which the old could not have supplied; and the new world has re-acted upon the old in the cause of freedom, as the old could not have acted upon itself. Even now, also, we are only in the beginning of that great outburst of enterprise and improvement which we trace to those memorable times, and in great part to the narrow and selfish policy of the agents above named.

It is instructive to observe how much is done in the government of the world by the ignorance of men more than by their knowledge. What we do from design is a small amount compared with what we do beyond our forethought. In all our plans we prophesy in part. The action of to-day generates the action of to-morrow. The scheme widens as it advances from purpose towards accomplishment. The one thing intended, brings along with it a host of The mind of the people of England two things not intended; and as our vision centuries since teemed with thoughts and takes in a wider compass, consequences and excitements, of which the men of our time contingencies are seen to multiply. One have no just conception. Our knowledge man creates the void, and another gives it in this respect must depend on the force of occupancy. One agency unlocks the stream, our imagination, hardly less than on the and a multitude are in waiting to affect its extent of our reading. The great questions, course and issue. Evil comes from good, both in politics and religion, which then and good comes from evil. Thus mockery agitated society, were comparative novelis cast over all human foresight. In this ties. The wonders of the new world, and twilight of perception the greatest men of the whole southern hemisphere, were dishave labored-Wycliffe and Luther, Colum-coveries of yesterday. National questions, bus and Bacon. Much that was in their accordingly, were debated with a degree of heart they have done, but much more which passionateness and earnestness, such as we their heart never conceived have they ac- seldom feel; while distant regions loomed complished. Being dead, they still speak, before the fancies of men in alliance [with and they still act-but the further the un- every thing shadowy, strange, and mysteridulations of their influence extend, the less ous. The old world seemed to be waking at is the semblance between the things which their side, as from the sleep of ages; and a are realized and the things which were ex-new world rose to their view, presenting pected. They have done less than they treasures which seemed to be inexhaustible. hoped, and more-much that they would The wonder of to-day was succeeded by have done, and much that they would not the greater wonder of to-morrow, and the have done. In short, in the providence of revelations seemed to have no end. At the our world, enough is plain and fixed to give same time, to very many their native land pulsation to virtue and hope in the right- had become as a house of bondage, and hearted; but enough is obscure and uncer- the waters of the Atlantic were the stream tain to rebuke impatience, and to suggest which separated between them and their many a lesson of humility. promised home.

It was the pleasure of Elizabeth, and of That feeling is now among the bygone her successors James and Charles, to take in our social history. But the traces of it upon them the office of the persecutor. In are still at times discoverable. The broadthat honorable vocation they found coad-er and deeper stream, now rolling on, jutors of suitable capacity and temper, in leaves its nooks and eddying points, where Whitgift, Bancroft, and Laud. The sover-something of the past still retains a place, eign and the priest gave themselves to such and still secures to it some influence over employment, in the sagacious expectation the preseut. It is now about twice seven that the opinions of men were matters to years since we passed a few pleasant weeks be shaped according to the royal pleasure, in one of the less peopled districts of Dor

setshire-that county which Charles II. is said to have described as the only county in England fit to be the home of a gentleman. What the qualities were which, in the estimation of royalty, gave so much of the air proper to the home of gentle blood to the county of Dorset, it will not be difficult to conjecture. Dorsetshire is remarkable for the almost total absence of the usual signs of trade and manufactures. It is no less remarkable, as a natural consequence, for the absence of any considerable middle class to separate hetween the serfs who till the ground, and the lords who own it. Even agriculture is prosecuted within such limits as may consist with leaving an ample portion of its surface in the good feudal condition of extended sheep-walks and open downs. Such Dorsetshire has ever been, such it still is; but, thanks to projected railroads, such we trust it is not always to be.

those sights which "we fools of nature" shrink from, than the spaces covered with the deep shadows of those overhanging trees-the living things, which budded and grew in the times of other generations, and which seemed to lift themselves aloft, as in a proud consciousness of being more associated with what has been than with what is. Within, also, there was much to strengthen fancies of this complexion. There were the gloomy stairs, with their dark walls, their long worn steps, and their railwork of massy oak. Apartments, with their antique panellings, their faded tapestry, and their concealed doorways. At night, the birds, who chose their lodgment amidst the ancient masonry of the chimneys, failed not to send their tokens of inquietude into the chambers below, as the gale from the neighboring channel came with tumultuous force upon the land. Part of the building, also, had become a ruin, thickly mantled with ivy, where owls might have pleaded their long holding as a right of tenantry, and from which they sallied forth at such times, as if glad to mingle their screams with the night storm, or to flap their wings against the casement of the sleeper.

On the occasion adverted to, we were indebted for a season to the hospitalities of an honest yeoman, whose residence had been occupied in other days by personages of much higher pretension than our host. It was an ancient mansion on a hill-side, overlooking an extended valley, which from the corresponding forms of the hills front- To one apartment in that interior a speing each other, resembled the bed of some cial mystery attached. It bore the name of departed Ganges or St. Lawrence. The the book-room. Of that room the master of lower part of the valley was cultivated and the house always retained the key. It was wooded, but the high slopes of the hills a part of his tenure that the contents of the were treeless and shrubless, except on the book-room should on no account be disspot where the dwelling of our yeoman turbed. Among those contents, beside a friend presented itself. That structure, curious library, were many other curious with its somewhat castellated front, with its things-such as a bonnet, said to have been long ascent of half decayed steps, its muti-worn by Queen Elizabeth when visiting lated balustrades, and its ample terrace, those western parts of her dominions; also rose amid lofty elms and chesnuts, forming a fan, which had been wielded by that royal a picture not the less pleasant to look upon hand; a whole suit of kingly apparel, refrom its contrast with the surrounding bar- ported to have been worn by Charles II., renness. Altogether this Dorset mansion and to have been left at the mansion by its was of a sort to work powerfully on that royal visitor. Above all, a skull was there. superstitious feeling and credulity, which It was the skull of a murdered man. The are so deeply rooted in the mind of every mark of the death wound was visible upon rural and secluded population. The sounds it. Tradition said that the victim of human which came after nightfall, in the autumnal violence was an African-a faithful servant and winter season, across that valley, from in the family which once found its stately the distant sea, and which passed in such home beneath that venerable roof. Amidst wild and strange notes through the branch- so much pointing to the dim past, we may es of those ancient trees, and through the be sure that the imagination of the dwellers crazy apertures of that more ancient build-in the old hall on the hill-side was not by ing, did not fall upon the ear without some any means unproductive. awakening effect upon the imagination. The dead, who once had paced those terrace walks were not forgotten; and where could there be a more fitting haunt for

Of course we must not confess to any participation in such susceptibilities in our own case. It was, however, a dark night, and a rough one too, when we obtained

our first admission to the mysterious book- We remembered Queen Elizabeth, tooroom. By the aid of our lamp, we explored the grave men who were honored as her the matters of virtu which it contained; ex- counsellors, her own stately presence, her amined the dreaded cranium, and found the pliant but masculine temper, and the skill mark of the wound upon it, strictly as re- with which she dispensed the tokens both ported. But our attention was soon direct- of her pleasure and of her pride. Her arts ed from the curiosities to the literature. of cajolery to-day, her haughty invective toThe contents of the library we found in no morrow, her ambition-her innate love of very orderly condition, and not a few of its rule at all times, and in all things. Her treasures had evidently suffered much from successor, also, we remembered-the king the state of uselessness to which the whole whose flesh gave signs of fear at the sight had been for so long a time reduced. The of a drawn sword. One of the most timid books were partly on shelves and tables, among men, having the place of chief over and partly in heaps upon the floor. Among the bravest of nations. The monarch who them were many existing in all the venera- presumed that he was born a great king, bleness of the times before the invention of and who supposed that he had made himself the printing-press. One of these sets prov- a great clerk. The ruler whose soul was ed to be an illuminated vellum transcript below all feeling of enterprise, presiding of the epistles of Innocent III.—a pontiff among a people with whom that feeling was who, in common with many of his race du- strong, irrepressible, almost boundless. ring the middle age, conducted a corre- The frivolous imbecile, whose days were spondence exceeding that of all the princes of Europe taken together. Many such works were there, and many learned volumes which had strayed from their fellows, and which bore upon them the marks of having suffered much in their wanderings. But the point which has brought the old Dorset hall on the hill-side in this manner to our memory is, that, among the printed works in this long-neglected library, was a number of tracts, and pamphlets, and small publications, relating to the countries of the new world, and to the marvels of recent voyaging. Some of them bore date as far back as the time of Elizabeth, but most of them were of the time of James I., and a little later.

Some hours passed, and we were still beguiled by the perusal and comparison of these remains, which, like some newly-discovered fossil bed, pointed our imagination to a former condition of society, if not to a former world. We felt as though drifted back to those times. We thought we saw good Mr. White, the puritan minister of the neighboring town of Dorchester, as he went forth the spiritual leader of the little band, who, more than two centuries since, sought their spiritual as well as their natural home on the shores of New England. We seemed to listen to the talk of such men as the brave John Smith, and the governor Winthrop; and to be witnesses to the conferences of such men as the lords Say and Brooke, Harry Vane, and John Hampden, as they cogitated their schemes of settlement for injured and free-hearted men on the other side the Western Ocean.

spent at the chase or at the cock-pit, and whose nights were given to court gambols, sensuality, and drunkenness; while around him were minds teeming with principles of the most solemn import, and with feelings of the purest and loftiest aspiration. The king who hated the name of freedom, and who strained his feeble and tremulous nerves to curb the genius of a people determined to be free. The least manly of all the sov. ereigns of Europe, claiming to be honored as a demi-god by a nation animated with the stern thought, and full-grown feeling of manhood, beyond any other nation in Christendom, and perhaps beyond all the nations of Christendom collectively in that age.

In all this we see a large amount of the unnatural, and the source of much inevitable mischief. But this mischief fell with its greatest weight on religion, and on the consciences of devout men. Many of the restless spirits of the time-the gallants as they were called-manifested their inquietude beneath this uncongenial control; and no scene of action being open to them, either as soldiers abroad, or as inviting them to do some fine thing at home, they many of them turned their attention to the newly-discovered regions of the earth, and to plans of colonization. But your gallants are not good at colonization. That sort of enterprise demands something more rare than courage, and something more valuable than ordinary worldly sagacity. Social virtue is nowhere tested as in infant setlements. Men who goupon such experiments need rooted principle, no less than stoutness of heart, and a spirit of patient endurance.

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