come up. Accordingly K. and the muleteer went forward with the wagon and tent, while the captain and his brother, together with Sorel, and a trapper named Boisverd, who had joined them, followed with the band of horses. The commencement of the journey was ominous, for the captain was scarcely a mile from Westport, riding along in state at the head of his party, leading his intended buffalo horse by a rope, when a tremendous thunder-storm came on, and drenched them all to the skin. They hurried on to reach the place about seven miles off, where R. was to have had the camp in readiness to receive them; but this prudent person, when he saw the storm approaching, had selected a sheltered glade in the woods where he pitched his tent, and was sipping a comfortable cup of coffee, while the captain gallopped for miles beyond through the rain to look for him. At length the storm cleared away, and the sharpeyed trapper succeeded in discovering his tent: R. had by this time finished his coffee and was seated on a buffalo-robe smoking his pipe. The captain was one of the most easy-tempered men in existence, so he bore his ill-luck with great composure, shared the dregs of the coffee with his brother, and laid down to sleep in his wet clothes.

We ourselves had our share of the deluge. We were leading a pair of mules to Kanzas when the storm broke. Such sharp and incessant flashes of lightning, such stunning and continuous thunder, I never heard before. The woods were completely obscured by the diagonal sheet of rain that fell with a heavy roar, and rose in spray from the ground; and the streams rose so rapidly that we could hardly ford them. At length, looming through the rain, we saw the log-house of Colonel Chick, who received us with his usual bland hospitality; while his wife who, though a little soured and stiffened by too frequent attendance on camp-meetings, was not behind him in hospitable feeling, supplied us with the means of repairing our drenched and bedraggled condition. The storm clearing away at about sunset, opened a noble prospect from the porch of the Colonel's house, which stands upon a high hill. The sun streamed from the breaking clouds upon the swift and angry Missouri, and on the immense expanse of luxuriant forest that stretched from its banks back to the distant bluffs.

Returning on the next day to Westport, we received a message from the captain, who had ridden back to deliver it in person, but finding that we were in Kanzas, had entrusted it with an acquaintance of his named Vogel, who kept a small grocery and liquor shop. Whiskey by the way circulates more freely in Westport than is altogether safe in a place where every man carries a loaded pistol in his pocket. As we passed this establishment, we saw Vogel's broad German face and knavish-looking eyes thrust from his door. He said he had something to tell us, and invited us to take a dram. Neither his liquor nor his message were very palatable. The captain had returned to give us notice that R., who assumed the direction of his party, had determined upon another route from that agreed upon between us; and instead of taking the course of the traders, to pass northward by Fort Leavenworth, and follow the

path marked out by the dragoons in their expedition of last summer. To adopt such a plan without consulting us, we looked upon as a very high-handed proceeding; but suppressing our dissatisfaction as well as we could, we made up our minds to join them at Fort Leavenworth, where they were to wait for us.

Accordingly, our preparation being now complete, we attempted one fine morning to commence our journey. The first step was an unfortunate one. No sooner were our animals put in harness, than the shaft-mule reared and plunged, burst ropes and straps, and nearly flung the cart into the Missouri. Finding her wholly uncontrollable, we exchanged her for another, with which we were furnished by our friend Mr. Boone of Westport, a grandson of Daniel Boone, the pioneer. This foretaste of prairie experience was very soon followed by another. Westport was scarcely out of sight, when we encountered a deep muddy gulley, of a species that afterward became but too familiar to us; and here for the space of an hour or more the cart stuck fast.

A SONG.

'LUFF WHEN YOU OAN, BEAR AWAY WHEN YOU MUST.'

BY JAMES KENNARD, JR.

WHEN the mariner sees, far ahead on the ocean,
By the yesty white waves, in their wildest commotion,
That breakers are lying direct in his path,
He dashes not onward to brave all their wrath,
But, still in his compass and helm placing trust,
Luffs, luffs if he can, bears away when he must.

Mid the lightning's sharp flash, mid the thunder's deep roar,
When the foaming waves dash on the rocky sea-shore,
When Hope disappears, and the terrible form

Of Death rides triumphant upon the dark storm,

In GoD and their ship the bold mariners trust,

Luff, luff while they can, yield a point when they must.

Then make it your rule, on the billows of life,
So to sail as to shun all commotion and strife;
And thus shall your voyage of existence be pleasant,
Hope smile on the future, Joy beam on the present;
If you in the rule of the mariner trust,

Luff, luff while you can, bear away when you must.

And when the lee-shore of grim Death is in view,
And the tempests of fate your lone vessel pursue!
Even while your last prayers unto GoD are addressed,
Though prepared for the worst, still hope on for the best;
Carry sail till the last stitch of canvass is burst-
Luff, luff while you can, drive ashore when you must.
Portsmouth, N. H., January, 1847.

LITERARY NOTICES.

THE NEW TIMON: A ROMANCE OF LONDON. In one volume. the third London edition. Philadelphia: CAREY AND HART.

pp. 208. First American from

We have made our way through this book, having been impelled to the labor, first from seeing Third edition' marked upon the London cover, and secondly, because we have observed divers encomiums going the rounds of the press, commending the volume to the especial attention of the public. Now as the public' and ourselves have somewhat to do with each other, and as we dislike to have the labor of our forced march for nothing, we propose to say something of this same ‹ New Timon.' We were taken rather aback, we confess, by the tone of self-confidence assumed by the author. Hear his promises :

'No tawdry grace shall womanize my pen,

Ev'n in a love-soug man should write for men.
Not mine, not mine (oh! Muse forbid !) the boon
Of borrowed notes, the mock-bird's modish tune.'

6

Having thus formally announced his claims, let us see how the author appears when tried in the light of them. We recollect among the occurrences of our boyhood to have seen and read a play by that clever sheep-stealer, WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, called Timon of Athens.' This New Timon' naturally brought to our mind the story of the man-hater, told by the great dramatist. And we will here admit that we fairly acquit our author of any imitation, servile or otherwise, of the 'Bard of Avon.' Still it was no trifling attempt, it strikes us-doubtless the author thought differently to assume for his volume a similar name; and as if the other work were specially in view, to dub this par excellence The New Timon.' We will devote a brief space, first to the subject of the work, and secondly to what we conceive to be its poetic merit.

The Timon of Athens' is admitted to be one of the best satires ever written. It contains the most striking and at the same time the most natural examples of ingratitude that of a state to its defender and of friends to a private benefactor. It shows too the folly of indiscriminate liberality and of thoughtless profuseness, together with the short-lived and uncertain duration of purchased praise. We have read the New Timon' through and through, to find in it some moral; some object, some particular design; but we can find none, at least none worthy of a published volume. We have the story of a half-blood:

THE offspring of an Indian maid
And English chief, whose orient hues betrayed

VOL. XXIX.

22

The Varna Sankara of the mixed embrace,
Carved by his sword a charter from disgrace,
Assumed the father's name, the Christian's life,
And his sins cursed him with an English wife.'

The author tells us in a long note the meaning of Varna Sankara' in this passage, to which we refer the reader, if curious on the subject. Well, the English wife' gives birth to MORVALE, the hero of our tale, the new TIMON, who, as a West Indian would say, is a regular 'quadroon.' The husband dies; the wife marries again, and deserts her first-born; gives birth to a daughter; loses her second husband, and goes to England. In the mean time our hero, who seems to be on luck's side, receives a large fortune by will from one of his father's friends. He goes to England to seek his mother; she evades him till on her death-bed, when she repents her of her cruelty, and dies, consigning her daughter to the care of the half-brother. There is a mystery about CALANTHA, the sister, which is kept up till we are nearly through with the story, and a very senseless mystery it is. The new TIMON after a while finds a young girl named Lucy, in the street, whom he relieves and takes to his home as a companion for his sister. The character of this girl is better drawn than any in the poem. Her sweetness of temper and purity of heart are very fairly portrayed. Our hero next makes the acquaintance of Lord ARDEN, who has been a wit and a debauchee, and who turns out to be the father of Lucy. We now have the mystery unravelled which hangs round CALANTHA; for Lord ARDEN proves to be the one who had won her heart and deserted her. Our hero and Lord ARDEN quarrel; CALANTHA prevents their fighting; and the former suspends the execution of his revenge until after the death of his sister, which soon takes place. He then goes in search of ARDEN. On his way he encounters a holy preacher, and becomes a Christian. Of course his hand is stayed; he foregoes his vengeance; soon after saves the life of his foe, Lord Arden, and then dies. Lucy, being illegitimate, could not 'take' under the will, because she was not specially named; and the new TIMON, now that she is penniless again, marries her; and so ends the tale. Now we ask for the design of the work before us.. We find in it only a place in which the author may vent his abundant spleen against an existing state of things. He is the real TIMON, and not our half-breed hero. And for this reason we say, that there can be no important moral gathered from the book. We should not have considered it very unnatural to find some spite exhibited by MORVALE toward civilization: we can't see, after all, what reason he would have for it, as he owes to it a large fortune, an education and a good wife. Still, we will not quarrel with his misanthropy, such as it is; but we maintain that our author is the real misanthrope; or rather, that he affects to be. There is a slur at every thing, whenever he can get a slur in. He scoffs at things as they are, finding nothing but evil and enmity in the world. He seems to rejoice in illegitimacy as a subject. MORVALE'S father is illegitimate; his wife is illegitimate; and his sister bears the reputation of having been seduced, which we are happy to say, however, turns out to be a mistake.

If there is any one thing that we especially disaffect and cannot abide, it is a mawkish, sentimental, affected disregard of things as they are; of fashion, of parade, of etiquette; of the customs of society, and the like. Admitting that many of these are absurd and ridiculous, that they are subjects of true satire, we yet cannot tolerate one who lives and practices these very absurdities just as far as he is able to do so, while he is continually declaiming against them, without proposing any thing, and