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THE COURANT; A SOUTHERN LITERARY JOURNAL. 77
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The Courant.
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COLUMBIA, S. C., THURSDAY, JULY 7, 1859.
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THE COURANT.
Subscriptions for the Courant will be received at the Book-
store of Mr. P. B. GLASS, in this City, where single copes can
be obtained every week.
The following gentlemen have been appointed Traveling
Agents for the Courant:
G. W. MEETZE, JAS. S. BALLEW,
THOS. P. WALKER, W. THOS. WILKES.
Mr. MEETZE will visit Lexington and Edgefield Districts, Mr.
BALLEW, Laurens and Newberry, Mr. WILKES, Chester, and
Mr. WALKER, Richland--during the present month.
We coridally recommend these gentlemen to the kind atten-
tions and courtesies of our friends.
WM. W. WALKER, JR., & CO.
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MONTHLIES FOR JULY.
The Atlantic contains some things of all sorts; good, bad
and indifferent. The "Professor at the Breakfast Table"
discourses much concerning women, and winds up with a sug-
gested romance. The poor old doctor is rather below his stan-
dard this month, while the poem which concludes the article is
merely a repetition of what the Autocrat-Professor had said
long ago. The paper on Thomas Paine's second appearance in
the United States, presents some interesting considerations.

The Knickerbocker gives us great variety this month; "New
York illustrated," "Romantic aspects of California and India,"
"The romance of a poor young man," &c., make a very read-
able number. "Depnologica variosa" will be read with pleas-
ure; but why does the author call St. Simeon Stylites, St.
Simon?

The Editor's Table is attractive as ever. The contents are
as follows:
New York, illustrated, by Dr. James O. Noyes; Romantic
Aspects of California and India; Alone, by Miss Fletcher;
The Seat of War; A Character, by T. B. Aldrich; The Romance
of a Poor Young Man (illustrated by Hoppin); The Lark;
Deipnologica, by Charles T. Congdon; A Schoolmaster to his
Wife; Young America, by R. S. Chilton; Aunt Patty and her
Nieces, a New England Story, by a lady of Cambridge, Mass.;
The Water Spout, by Rev. F. W. Shelton; From Museum
Deliciae.

The Great Republic, with its painfully red title-page, and
some equally painfully read articles inside, arrives duly.
"Seven years in ye Western land," is getting intolerable.
But the papers on Valparaiso, and on the New York Stock-
brokers are very entertaining.
The poem, "The picture on the wall," is, we suppose, from
the pen of our gifted poetess, Sarah Helen Whitman; it is sug-
gestive, wierdly, Poe-ish.

Harper's, the king of the Monthlies, comes freighted, as
usual, with matter for every taste. As our readers may like
to know who are the writers of the articles of this sterling
Magazine, we give them below.
The Saguenay, written and illustrated by Benson J. Lossing:
A Visit to John Brown's Tract, written and illustrated by Col.
T. B. Thorpe; The Flea, by Mrs. Charlotte Taylor; Ode on
the Birthday of John Wesley, by William Ross Wallace; Acel-
dama Sparks, or, Old and New, by Rose Terry; The Death of
Walter Butler, a ballad of Tyron county, by Thomas Dunn
English; A Story of a Garter, by Edward H. House; A Mid-
night Adventure on Mount Cenis, by Mrs. Annie Brewster;
In the Garden, by T. B. Aldrich; John Wesley, by Rev. Mr.
Hagany.
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"AMERICAN WRITERS."
From one of our exchanges we clip the following:
"Of the hundred and sixty-eight authors, from whose writ-
ings selections are made in "Cleveland's Compendium of Amer-
ican Literature," forty-eight were born in Massachusetts;
twenty-five in New York; twenty-three in Connecticut; seven-
teen in Pennsylvania; eleven in Maine; six in New Hampshire;
six in Virginia; five in Maryland; four in New Jersey; four
in South Carolina; three in Vermont; three in Rhode Island;
two in Ohio; several states have but a single representative."
The secret of this, lies in the fact, that "Cleveland's Com-
pendium" is a miserable anti-slavery concern. The Saturday
Press gave a very thorough review of it last December, and
proved triumphantly that not only had almost all the literature
of the South been ignored, but that some villanous injustice
had been done otherwise; as for instance, wherever the occa-
sion offered for a fling at the South. Moreover, we have dis-
covered since, that several true men of the North have been ex-
cluded from this volume, "because they were too lenient towards
the institution of slavery, and too friendly towards Southern men
and Southern literature," The English of the book is wretched,
the Press having shown up some of the most stupid blunders,
appalling ignorance, and false style, that it has been our fortune
to see in a long time. Mr. Cleveland is not only a mad ab-
litionist, who has excluded Southern authors, and filled his
book with slanders on the South, but he is a miserable dunce,
who cannot write the King's English, and who makes an ass of
himself otherwise, in general. If our readers desire to know
something about the number of Southern writers, see DUYCK-
INCK & ALLIBONE.
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If a truth be established, objections are nothing. The one is
founded on our knowledge, the other on our ignorance.
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WAR.
From the last Saturday Press we extract the following
thoughtful and suggestive passages, which occur in a sermon
by the Rev. Mr. Bartlett, of Brooklyn. The humanity of this
sermon is really refreshing in these days of stilted formalism.
He had chosen for his text, the 4th verse of the second chap-
ter of Isaiah:
"They shall beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears
into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more."
"The prophet has a vission of Christ's kingdom come. He
sees beyond the grave of the last vicious passion, when no hand
shall remain to wield a sword or a spear, and the plough-share
and the pruning-book shall stand, the emblems of perpetual
peace. He looked through the future as through a lens, and
beyond the ages of battle his eye at last rested, and, as his
highest conception o fMillennium, he predicts a cessation of
hostilities, an eternal armistice between conflicting nations.
"'Shall learn war no more.' It was farther than the pres-
ent that the prophet must have looked, for Europe is one vast
military academy, where men are disciplined in the tactics of
scientific slaughtering, before they are allowed to practice a
peaceful profession. The history of war would well nigh
tell the history of the world. All nations have their sacred
battles to which they point back with veneration. Poets and
orators can find no more inspiring theme than the achieve-
ments of some warlike hero; and sculptors and painters draw
their inspiration from imaginary battles. All the past is but
one continuous battle; and I doubt whether, since Abel's
slaughter, the sun has ever made his circuit without looking
upon bloodshed. The nations have used peace as an individ-
ual uses night, to recuperate for more violent struggles. Such
an universal outlet to the passions of the race as war has been,
is worth a moral consideration.
"The mind of the individual holds, in germ at least, all the
passions that have rocked continents, all the intellectual con-
ditions and possibilities that have characterized the world's
golden ages--all the moral states, in fractions, that millennium,
or heaven even, will possess in totality. A man is a key to a
nation, to the universe. And thus we may hope to understand
war. We, who are dwelling in a land of long pace, and con-
sequent plenty, read of war as a past barbarism, and it requires
an effort to appreciate that within a few weeks, thousands of
human beings have been butchered in conflict; to realize that
while I speak, half of Europe is in arms; nay, at this instant,
may be, the very earth is quaking beneath the shock of cav-
alry, and the green glories of an Italian Spring are polluted by
a shower of blood. Yet it is the one absorbing topic of the day.
It loads the telegraphs, and gives the steamer a heartier wel-
come. All eyes are strained Eastward, and all hearts cast their
sympathies with one party or the other."
There is food for thought in this passage:
"There is, then, a fearful attractiveness about war. Re-
ligion is made to ennoble and sanctify all misdoings. Satan
never has a plan of scientific deviltry but what religion is used
as the decoy. See the cast-iron piety of the Puritan Cromwell,
fighting for God's glory, and England's crown. What a spec-
tacle of bigoted enthusiasm does his army present! Now they
are saying grace over their powder, and invoking Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost to guide their bullets to their enemies' hearts.
These men were invincible. They felt as though in some way
they were props to the eternal throne. They renounced the
carnal drum and fife, and moved solemnly to the slaughtering
shock, to the tune of 'Old Hundred,' and 'Mear,' accenting
each line with a volley of musketry, while the graons of the
dying echoed an awful interlude. Conquer them? Why,
death was victory. War was attractive to them, for eternal
glory lay just beyond it. Our own Washington hallowed the
execution of Andre with a prayer, and poured upon the blaze
of vomiting batteries a solemn benediction. Later, in the Eng-
lish army, we have a Havelock and a Henry Vicars serving the
King of kings, and the Queen of queens, with apparent consis-
tency, mailed with a double panoply; to-day, before the Mal-
akoff of Sevastopol, or the Sepoys of India; to-morrow, waving
their palms, where sword and plowshare are alike useless--the
one missing a ducal coronet in his ambition to seize a saint's
diadem."
"Oh1 if you have never heard the unwritten story of a war,
as it is lived in the pauses of battle, you are not prepared for
disclosures. The field of the most desperate carnage but faint-
ly typifies that war of lust and passion that rages in the hearts
of both armies. Then ponder upon the anxiety and the love
that follow these husbands and fathers. Think of the arrows
of anguish that will fly from the field of Montebello, shooting
out the light from many a firmament, and crushing the life
from many a heart. The mother and the little ones may wail
and sob for the father in the wars. Years of anxious watching
--aye, quick descents into anguish-dug graves, will be the fate
of the innocents at home. Were I a monarch, I would rather
purchase peace at almost any cost--rather divide my kingdom
--aye, die by my own sword--than be crushed into my grave
by a weight of human agony, or have my spirit's peace drowned
in the tears of the fatherless, or leave earth orchestrated by that
awful wall--that crash that goeth up when a million widowed
hearts are breaking.
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THE REASON.
From the Atlantic for July this "vox Clamantis in de-
serto:"
"With a metropolis planted in a crevice between Maryland
and Virginia, and stunted because its roots vainly seek healthy
nourishment in a soil impoverished by slavery, a paulo-post-future
Capital, tho centre of nothing, without literature, art, or so
much as commerce--we have no recognized dispenser of national
reputation, like London or Paris."
Doubtless, this is why the great Frogpondia takes such care
of her mutual-admiration Society. But what right has a Bos-
ton Magazine to complain of America's lack of a "metropolis-of
mind." when the great Autocrat has said, and all the people of
the city of Brains applauded the idea, that Boston is the intel-
lectual hub of the world? Especially, why lament that Judge
Parsons has no national reputation? Is he not famous in Bos-
ton? and is not that enough?
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LITERARY NOTICES.
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"THE CAVALIER:" An Historical Novel. By G. P. R. JAMES.
Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & Brotheres, 1859." Columbia:
P. B. GLASS.
Another novel from James! Another dilution of that time-
honored plot, the horseman, the battle, the rescue, and those
details always so faithfully attended to, and so uniformly like
his model! Really, the climax of Mr. JAMES' absurdities is
now capped; for the "Cavalier" is immensely inferior, even to
the worst of his other attempts. We have literally waded
through this tiresome volume, and the single feeling of pleasure
which we have experienced was one of profound relief at turn-
ing the las tpage. Itis a dull, patch-work, tiresome book. It
seems to have been written with the conviction that it was his
duty to furnish the munificent publishers with a certain quantity
of matter, in consideration of the large sum which they had
stipulated to pay him, to wit: $1,680. The Petersons them-
selves seem to regard the fact of a large payment for the book
as a sort of guaranty for the character of the contents, since
they publish first, (in their advertisement of the Cavalier,) Mr.
JAMES' letter, wherein he acknowledges the magnificent terms,
and notifies his patrons of the bills which he has drawn upon
their house. He ends his letter with the cheering assurance
of his liking the book in MS., and his opinion that "there is
quite enough action in it to suit you," (the Petersons.) The
publishers then state the points of excellence which JAMES'
writings possess, and go on to say that the enduring books are
the Robinson Crusoes, the Vicar of Wakefields, the novels of Scott
& Charles Dickens, &c.--(what a classification!)--and sweetly
console us with the assertion, "so it is with mr. James' produc-
tions, which alwas receive warm commendations from the
highest critics. He does not tear either his style or his passion
to tatters; he does not rejoice in extravagances of diction or
monstrosities of character." All of which is true, except the
item of "commendations from the highest chritics." JAMES has
been as severely criticised, and as justly too, as any man
who ever wrote; and even the praises which are accorded to
him have always been for his quiet style, his entire unaffected-
ness, and a certain sort of story-telling power, which nobody
possesses like him. But a great novel, in the sense in which
"My novel," and "Jane Eyre," and "Ivanhoe," and Coopers',
Victor Hugo's or Dickens' and Thackeray's novels are great,
he has never yet written. His province is somewhat like that
of our Carolina novelisit, W. G. Simms, simply to tell stories of
stirring and diversified interest, by reason of the action involved
in a more or less complicated plot; but to the level of the great
works of the first rank of novels, neither of them ever rise.
Leigh Hunt has well expressed the province of JAMES' power,
and as it embodies precisely our opinion of his merits gener-
ally, we shall quote it here:
"I hail every fresh publication of James, though I half know
what he is going to do with his lady, and his gentleman, and
his landscape, and his mystery, and his orthodoxy, and his
criminal trial. But I am charmed with the new amusement
which he brings out of old materials. I look on him as I look
on a musician famous for 'variations.' I am grateful for his
vein of cheerfulness, for his singularly varied and vivid land-
scapes, for his power of painting women at once lady-like and
loving; (a rare talent,) for making lovers to match, at once
beautiful and well-bred, and for the solace which all this time
has afforded me, sometimes over and over again, in illness and
in convalescence, when I required interest without violence,
and entertainment at once animated and mild."
A philosophical novel in his hands would be the flattest of
flat things. Think, what would he do with such plots as those of
D'Israeli's "Vivian Gray," or Bulwer's "Caxtons"; much
worse, what would become of him with such outlines chalked
out for him as were doubtless vividly in the minds of the great
geniuses who wrote "The Newcomes," or "David Copperfield?"
Give him a plot like that of the "Cassique of Kiawah," or
"The Yemmassee," and he would do exactly what Mr. Simms
has done with them: he would make a plain, straightforward
tale, with little reflection, little analysis of character, small at-
traction of style, but full of stirring incident, and made vastly
interesting by a story thickening with wild adventures of love
and war, and graphic descriptions of the times and manners,
introducing always a solitary horseman or two, a ride which
should result in the heroine's getting into water and the hero's
rescuing her from that peculiar condition.
"The Cavalier" is insufferably commonplace, of the stereo-
type-style, and altogether one of the most tiresome books we
ever read. Here and there occurs a gleam of the old power in
depicting a "hair-breadth 'scape," but soon he falls back into
the dreary flatness of that school whose novels are all so con-
structed that the reader can predict, after reading the first
chapter, precisely what fate awaits all the characters. The
cooking match between Madam Marzot and Gaillard came very
near being a good thing, but it didn't. The sketch of the skir-
mishing of Turenne and Condè we thought was going to be find,
but lo! it failed also; while the melo-dramatic scene between
Cromwell and Lord Dartmoor (p. 335, et seq.,) is little short of
the ludicrous. The man of iron, Oliver Cromwell, does not look
like himself in this portraiture, and we fear that Mr. JAMES
has transgressed the rule which Cromwell himself laid down,
"paint me as I am." Lucy is a tearful, fearful and love-sick
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