1859-11-03 The Courant

THE COURANT A Southern Literary Journal. HOWARD H. CALDWELL, EDITOR.] "Sic vos non vobis." [WM. W. WALKER, JR., & Co., PROPRIETORS. VOLUME I. COLUMBIA, S. C., THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1859. NUMBER 27

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GEMS FROM THE DEAD. — BY LIZZIE CLARENDON. —

The gifted poetess thus introduced the poem, when she published it many years ago : "MESSRS. EDITORS:—The following lines were written after having heard a respected and pious minister of the gospel relate, in his style of touching and simple eloquence, a sweet 'vision of the night ' which had seemed to him like a glimpse of the 'better land.' I have attempted to clothe it in a poetical dress, without altering the sense or substance at all. I hope he will pardon the liberty I have taken, and regard it only as a token of the esteem of his 'absent friends.' "

THE MINISTER'S DREAM.

"I had a dream Which was not all a dream." This mortal life— This restless, wearied, care-worn, mortal life— Was done; and on a music-strain, and wings Of beauteous angels, I was borne aloft, 'Till mighty earth, with all her rolling floods— And hoary hills and boundless emerald plains Had dwindled to a point, and stars and suns Looked dim in distance. Then the golden walls, Studded with richest gems, rose on my sight, The "holy city," with its gates of pearl, Its streets of glassy gold—its blazing light; And soon the crystal river—-and the trees Whose flowers are fadeless, and whose leaves-can heal The nations of the earth, ancl cleanse from sin. Then harps were struck, and golden lyres swept, And music filled the courts of heaven, breathed From angel lips; and lo! the song they sung Was this:—" Praise to the Lord! the lost is found! The wanderer is at home! the exile rests!" Wondering I stood:-"At home! in heaven! I, The child of earth, the sin-stained soul whose barque, Leaky and frail, was just now wrecked and sunk Beneath the waves of death! at home! in heaven ! " I prostrate fell, and with my trembling hands Concealed my mortal features from their gaze. "Shew him, his name! '' Thus spake a music voice From out the rainbow throne: and lo! to me A six-winged seraph came, bearing a book Whose golden leaves were beauteous to behold; And there, inscribed in deathless characters It stood—the name this "outward man" had borne. "Go, crown him no!" again the Saviour spake; And quick an angel-band with willing hands Placed on my brow—that thrilled with rapturous joy— A crown of gold be-gemmed with stars of light. I bowed my head, and once again the song Swelled through the heavenly courts: " The lost is found! The wanderer is at home ! the exile rests ! " It ceased, and on my ear the rustling noise Of flying wings, struck with a pleasing sound. I felt them fanning gently as they came, I heard them folding softly on the breast, . And then—oh joy !—my forehead, starred with light, Was gently pressed, and silvery tones of love, Whispered, in accents sweeter than those harps:— "My son, my son! how have I longed for this! How watched, how waited for thee! I, my son, Thy mother once,-thy guardian spirit then, Now thy companion angel, and thy friend! Henceforth thy home shall be in this bright world, Henceforth thou shalt be free from sin and pain, We part no more, my son." Oh, mother blessed ! Whose gentle hand through all the mazy paths Of erring youth and childhood led me on;— Whose voice breathed like heaven's music to my heart When pleasure's Syren song had lured me on Near to tho giddy height from whence the fall Was everlasting misery and death ;— The hope that I will meet thee cheers my soul, Reflects its bow of promise through my tears, And lights my pathway with its kindling glow. Watch for me, mother, watch and wait, and be My guardian angel still, until with thee I bow with holy joy to worship Him "Who sitteth on the throne" of heaven's might.

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LA POLA. — " "Tis still the same—and this the Tyrant's creed, The brave must perish still, the virtuous bleed— Yet lesson'd by the examples which they leave, The living s_hall avenge them, but not grieve— Their blood has watered well our freedom's tree, And sweetly hallows human Liberty:— Even woman, too—a dearer sacrifice, Oh! hapless gain for freedom, when she dies!"

The Colombians, generally, will long remember LA POLA. With the history of their struggle for freedom, her story is deeply associated, and the tragical destiny which followed her love of country, is linked with all the interest of the most romantic adve'itture. Her spirit seemed niade of the finest materiais, while her patriotism and courage, to the last, furnish a model which it would have been well for her country, had it been more generally adopted and followed by its sons.

Dona Apolinaria Zalabariata, better known by the name of La Pola, was a young lady of good family in Bogota, distinguished not less by her personal accomplishments than her rich and attractive beauty. She was but a child when Bolivar commenced his struggles with the , ostensible object of freeing his country from the trammels of its oppressors. Her father, a gentleman of considerable acquirements as well as wealth, warmly seconded the designs of the Liberator, though from circumstances compelled to forbear any active agency himself in their promotion. He was a republican of considerable resources and sleepless perseverance; and, without taking up arms himself, he probably contirbuted quire as much to the success of the experiment for libery as those who did. IN this he was warmly seconded by his daughter, who with the ingenuity of contrivance commonly ascribed to her sex, was, perhaps, the most valuable auxiliary that Bolivar has in Bogota.

She was but fourteen years of age, when accident gave her the first glance of the man afterwards the President of her country. At this time, with few resources, and fewer friends and coadjutors, Bolivwar occasioned little distrust, and, perhaps, commanded as little attention. Still, he was known, and generally recognized as an enemy to the existing authorities. Prudence was necessary, therefore ; and it was at midnight, and during a severe thunder-storm, that he entered the city, and made his way, by arrangement, into the inner apartments of the house of Zalabariata. A meeting of the conspirators—for such they were—had been contemplated on this occassion, and many of them were in attendance. The circumstances could not be altogether concealed from the family, and La Pola, who had heard something of Bolivar which has excited her curiousity, contrived to be present, though partially conceal by her habit, and by a recess situation which she had chosen. The Liberator explained his projects to the assembly. He was something more than eloquent—he was impassioned ; and the warmth of a southern sun seemed burning in his words and upon his lips. La Pola heard him with illconcealed admiration. Not so her countrymen. Accustomed to usurpation and overthrow, they were slow to adventure life and property upon the predictions of one who, as yet, had given so few assurances of success for the game which he had in hand. They hesitated, they scrupled, and opposed to his animated exhortations a thousand suggestions of prudence— a thousand calculations of fear. The Liberator

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grew warmer and more vehement. He denounced in broad language the pusillanimity which, as much as the tyranny under which they groaned, was the curse of his country.

"Am I to go alone?" he exclaimed, passionately ; "am I to breast the enemy singly? Will none of you come forward and join with me in procuring the liberation of our people? I ask you not, my countrymen, to any grievous risk—to any rash adventure. There is little peril, be assured, in the strife before us. We are more than a match, united among ourselves and with determined spirits, for twice, aye thrice, the power which they can bring into the field. But even were not this the case—were it that the chances were all decidedly against us—I cannot see, still, how you can, or why you should, hesitate to draw the sword in such a strife. You daily and hourly feel the exactions and witness the murders and cruelties of your masters. Thousands of your friends and realtives lie rotting in the common prisons, denied the most common attentions and neccessaries, and left to perish under innumerable privations. Thousands have perished in toure, and over the gateway of your city; but now, as I entered, hanging in chains, the bleaching bones of old Hermano, one of your best citizens, destroyed because he dared to speak freely his thought of these doings, attest the uncompromising and bloody tyranny under which you must momentarily look for a like fate. If you be me—if you have hearts or hopes—if you have affections to lose and live for—you surely will not hesitate as to the choice—the only choice which a freeman, one worthy and desirous of the name —should be allowed to make."

The Liberator paused, as much through exhaustion as from a desire to enable his hearers to reply. But, with this latter object, his pause seemed made entirely in vain. The faces of all around him were blank and speechless. They were generally quiet, well-meaning citizens, unaccustomed to any enterprises save those of trade, and they were slow to risk the wealth which many of them posessed in abundance, to the certain confiscation which would floow any overt exhibition against the existing authorities. While in this state of hopeless and speechless indecision, the emotions of the chief were scarcely controllable. His whole frame trembled with the excitement of his spirit. He paced their ranks hurriedly—now pausing with this and that personage— appealing to them singly as he had done collectively, and suggesting a thousand arguments of weight for the effecting of his purpose. He became impatient at length, and again addressed them:

"Men of Bogota, you are not worthy to be free, if you can hesitate longer. Your chains and insecurity will have been merited, and be assured, when they become necessary to the wants of your enemy, your present acquiescence to his power will not avail for the protection of your lives or property. They are both at his mercy, and he will not pause, as you have done, to make use of them. To save them from him, you must risk them for yourselces. To suppose that his mercies will keep them for your benefit, is to think madly. There is no security against power but in power; and to check the innovating terrors of the one, you must exhibit, at the treshold, the strong-armed vengeance of the other. A day—an hour—and it may be too late. To-morrow, unless I am betrayed to-night"—looking with a sarcas

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[column 1] tic smile around him as he spoke─" I shall unfurl the banner of the republic, and if there be no other name arrayed in arms against the oppressor, the more glory to that of Bolivar."

While the chief spoke, the emotions of the youthful La Pola could not be concealed. The colour came to and went from her cheeks─the tears started to her eyes ─she rose hurriedly from her seat, which she unconsciously again resumed, and, as the Liberator concluded his address, rushed across the narrow space which separated her from her father, and seizing him by the hand, with an action the most passionate, yet dignified and graceful, she led him to the spot where Bolivar still held his position; then, for the first time, giving utterance to her lips, she exclaimed, enquiringly:

" He must not stand alone, my father. You have a name, and you will give it─you will not withhold it from your country─and I, too─I will do what I can, if"─and her eye sunk before that of the chief as she spoke, while her voice trembled with a tone of modest doubt, the most winning and expressive─" if you will let me."

The eloquence of the woman did more than all that had been uttered either by way of reason or patriotic impulse and exhortation from the lips of the chief. The men, touched with a sense of shame, at once came forward, and entered into the required pledges. There was no more hesitation─no new scruple; and the Liberator, pressing the hand of the bright-eyed girl to his lips, called her a spirit worthy of her country, and such as, if possessed generally by its sons, could not fail, in a short time, most effectually to recover its liberties.

Another day, and the standard of the republic was raised. The republicans assembled numerously beneath it, and but little foresight was necessary to perceive that in the end the cause must eventually triumph. Still the successes were various. The Spaniards had too strong a foothold easily to be driven from their possessions, and the conflict, as we know, was for a long time of the most indecisive and various character. What the Colombians wanted, however, in the materials for carrying on a protracted warfare, was more than made up to the patriotism, the talent and the vigilance of their leaders generally ; and however delayed may have been the event which they desired and had in view, its certainty of attainment seems never for a moment to have been questioned, except by those who vainly continuedto keep up an ineffectual and hopeless conflict against them.

For two years that the war had been carried on, no material change had been effected in the position of the combatants. The Spaniards still maintained their ground in most respects, except where the Colombians had been unanimous in their rising; but their resources were hourly undergoing diminution, and the great lessening of the productions of the country incident to its unsettled condition, had subtracted largely from the inducements held out, individually, to their officers, for the further prosecution of the war. In the meantime, the patriots were invigorated with hope in due proportion with the depression of their opponents ; and the increase of numbers, not to speak of the added skill and capacity of their arms, following their long and continuous warfare, not a little contributed to their further encouragement. But how, in all this time, had La Pola redeemed her pledge to the Liberator ? It may be supposed that the promise of the girl of fifteen was not of such a nature as to warrant a reasonable hope or prospect of its fulfilment. It certainly was not regarded by Bolivar himself as any thing more than the hasty utterance of her emotion, under peculiar excitement, having no other object, if it had any, than to provoke, by a sense of shame and self-rebuke, the unpatriotic inactivity of her countrymen. The girl herself did not think so, however. From that moment she became a woman ─a strong-minded, highly persevering and most attractive woman. All her soul was bent to the achievement of some plan of cooperation with the republican chief, and circumstances largely contributed to the desire thus entertained. She resided in Bogota─the strong-hold

[continues to column 2] of the Royalist forces, under the control of Zamano, a military despot, who, in process of time, in that country, acquired by his cruelties a parallel notoriety with some of the foulest Governors of the Roman dependencies. Her family was wealthy, and, though favouring Bolivar's enterprise, as we have seen, had so conducted as to remain entirely unsuspected by the existing powers. This enviable security, the management of La Pola herself had principally effected; and under its cover she perfected a scheme of communication with the Patriots by which she put into their possession all the plans of the Spaniards. She was the Princess of the Tertulias─ a mode of evening entertainment common to the Spaniards. She presided at these parties with a grace and influence which brought all their officers to her house. They listened with delight to the power and delicacy with which she accommodated her voice─one of singular compass and melody─to the notes of her guitar, in the performance upon which she was uncommonly successful. Unsuspected of any connection with politics, and regarded only as a fine woman, more solicitous of a long train of admirers than of any thing else, she contrived to collect from the officers themselves most of their plans in the prosecution of the war. She soon learned the force of their several armaments, their disposition and destination, and, indeed, in timely advance, all the projected operations of the Spanish army. She knew all the officers, and from those present, obtained a knowledge of their absent companions. In this way, she knew the station of each advanced post─who was in command, and most of those particulars, the knowledge of which tended as frequently to the success of Bolivar as his own conduct and the courage of his men. All these particulars were regularly transmitted to him, as soon as obtained, by a trusty messenger; and the frequent disappointments of the Royalist arms attested the closeness and general correctness of the information thus obtained.

Unfortunately, one of her communications was intercepted, and the cowardly bearer, intimidated by the terror of impending death, was persuaded to betray his employer. She was arrested in the midst of an assembled throng, to whom her voice and guitar were imparting a mingled melody of most attractive romance. She was nothing alarmed at this event, but was hurried before a military court─martial law then prevailing in the capital─with a rapidity corresponding with the supposed enormity of the offence. Her lover, a noble youth named Gomero, though perfectly innocent of any connection with her acts on this occasion, was tried along with her, and both condemned─for, at this time, condemnation and trial were words of synonymous import ─to be shot. Zamano, the Viceroy, desirous of more victims, and hoping to discover her accomplices, granted them a respite of twelve hours before execution, sparing no effort in all this time to bring about a confession. The friar sent to confess her, threatened her, if she ventured upon any concealments from him, with eternal punishment hereafter; while promises of pardon and reward assailed both herself and her betrothed, in the hope of effecting the same object─but all equally in vain. She resolutely denied having any other accomplice than the messenger she employed, and prayed a release from the prosecution of any further inquiries. Perceiving that Gomero, her intended, husband, was about to speak, and probably confess, through a natural dread of the death he saw so near, -she seized his arm impressively, and fixing her dark eyes reproachfully upon him, she exclaimed :

" Gomero, did I love you for this ? Beware, lest I hate and curse you as I die. What! is life so dear to you that you would dishonour us both to live? Is there no consolation in the thought that we shall die together?"

"But we shall both be saved !" rejoined the lover.

"It is false! The tyrant Zamano spares none; our lives are forfeited, and all that you could say would be unvailing to avert either your fate or mine. He only desire new victims, and will not release his grasp upon those m his doom. If you have ever loved me, Go

[continues to column 3] mero, speak no more after this fashion. Shew yourself worthy of the choice which I have made in the manner of your death."

The lover persevered in silence, and they were led forth to execution. The friars retired from the hapless pair, and the firing p·arty made ready. Then, for the first time, did the spirit of this noble woman shrink instinctively from the approach of death.

"Butcher !" she exclaimed to the Viceroy, who stood in his balcony, overlooking the scene of execution─ "Butcher, you have, then, the heart to kill a woman !" and as she spoke, she covered her face with the saya, or veil, which she wore, and on drawing it aside for the purpose, the words "Viva la Patria," embroidered in gold, were discovered on the basquina As the signal for execution was given, a distant hum, as of an advancing army, was heard upon the ear.

"It is he─he comes─it is Bolivar─it is the Liberator !" she exclaimed, with a tone of triumph which found its echo in the bosoms of thousands who looked with horror on the scene of blood before them. Bolivar it was─he came with all speed to the work of deliverance─the city was stormed sword in hand─a summary atonement was taken in the blood of the cruel Viceroy and his flying partizans. But the Deliverer came too late to the rescue of the beautiful La Pola. The fatal bullet had penetrated her heart, but a few moments before the appearance of the liberating party upon the works, and in sight of the place of execution. Thus perished a woman worthy to be remembered with the purest and the proudest who have elevated and done honour to nature and her sex─one who, with all the feelings and affections of the woman, possessed all the patriotism, the pride, the courage, and the daring of the man!

EXHAUSTION OF TALK.─How long the lamp of conversation holds out to burn, between two persons only, is curiously set down in the following passages from Count Gonfallionier's account of his imprisonment:─ "Fifteen years I existed in a dungeon ten feet square! During six years I had a companion; during nine I was alone! I never could rightly distinguish the face of him who shared my captivity, in the eternal twilight of our cell. The first year we talked incessantly together we related our past lives─our joys for ever gone─over and over again. The next year we communicated to each other our thoughts and ideas on all subjects. The third year we had no ideas to communicate; we were beginning to lose the power of reflection. The fourth, at the interval of a month or so, we would open our lips to ask each other 1f it were possible that the world went on as gay and bustling as when we formed a portion of mankind. The fifth we were silent. The sixth he was taken away─I never knew where, to execution or liberty. But I was glad when he was gone; even solitude was better than the pale, vacant face. One day (it must have been a year or two after my companion left me) the dungeon door was opened, whence proceedmg I knew not, the following words were uttered: 'By order of his Imperial Majesty, I intimate to you that your wife died a year ago.' Then the door was shut, and I heard no more; they had but flung this great agony upon me, and left me alone with it."

BISHOP HEBER, upon departing for India, said in his farewell sermon :─"Life bears us on like the stream of a mighty river. Our boat at first glides down the narrow channel─through the playful murmuring of the little brook, and the windows of its glassy borders. The trees shed their blossoms over our young heads ; the bowers of the brink seem to offer themselves to our young hands; we are happy in hope, and we grasp eagerly at the beauties around us, but the stream hurries on, and still our hands are empty. Our course in youth and manhood is along a wider, deeper flood, amid objects more striking and magnificent. We are animated by the moving picture of enjoyment and industry passing us; we are excited by short-lived disappointment. The stream bears us on, and our joys and griefs are left behind us. We may be shipwrecked, but we cannot be delayed─whether rouo-h or smooth, the river hastens towards its home till the 0roar of the ocean is in our ears and the wave is beneath our feet, and the land lessens from our eyes, and the floods are lifted up around us, and we take our leave of earth and its inhabitants, until to our farther voyage there is no witness save the Infinite and Eternal."

SLANG─The witless man's wit.─Punch.

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[column 1] FRANCIS LIEBER'S INTRODUCTORY LECTURE TO HIS COURSE ON POLITICS, DELIVERED IN THE COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL, N. Y., OCT. 10, 1859. (CONCLUDED.)

The faithful teacher of politics ought to be a manly and profound observer and construer. His business does not lie with fantastic theories or empty velleities, except to note theru historically, and thus make them instructive. Aristotle says, and Bacon quotes his saying approvingly, that the nature of a thing is best known by the study of its details, and Campanella, whom I quote only to remind you how early the truth was acknowledged, observes that a thing consists in its history (its development), not in its momentary appearance, its phenomenon. Let us keep these, two dicta before our eyes during our inquiries into the state, with this addition, that the knowledge of details yields fruitful acquisition only if it be gathered up in an ultimate knowledge of the pervading organism; and that, however true the position of Campanella, we must remember that politics is a moral science, and history, the record of political society, has not necessarily a prescribing character. Where this is forgotten men fall into the error of Symmachus pleading for Victoria, because the goddess of the forefathers was against the God of the Christians, because a new God ; but where men forget the importance of history, development becomes impossible, and dwarfish schemes will set men in motion, like the insects of corruption busy in disintegrating mischief.

I neither belong to the school of those who, acknowledging free agency in the individual, teach nevertheless that nations follow a predestined fate, wholly independent of the beings composing them; nor do I belong to the modern optimists who complacently see nothing but advancement in our dubious age. I neither believe the region of the state to resemble the Olympus with its suspended ethics; nor do I belong to the retrospective school. I differ with those who follow Sismondi, a justly honoured name, in the opinion that "every day must convince us more that the ancients understood liberty and the conditions of free government infinitely better than we do." The political progress of our race has been signal. How else can we explain these patent facts, that modern states with liberty have a far longer existence─where is the England of autiquity, counting a thousand years from her Alfred, and still free?─that liberty and wealth in modern nations have advanced together, which the ancients considered axiomatically impossible; that modern liberty may not only advance with advancing civilization and culture, but requires them; that, occasionally at least, modern states pass through periods of lawlessness without succumbing, or that, as was mentioned before, modern societies have risen again, after having passed through depressed periods threatening ultimate ruin; that in modern times alone the problem has been solved, however rarely, of uniting progressive liberty with progressive order, which seemed to Tacitus a problem incapable of solution; that the moderns alone have shewn the possibility of ruling large nations (not cities) with broadcast liberty; that in modern history alone we find civil liberty without enslaving the lower layer of society, and with the elimination of the idea of castes; that in modern societies alone essential and even radical changes in the political structure are effected without razing the whole edifice to the ground; that moderns alone have found the secret of limiting supreme public power, in whom soever vested, by the representative principle and institutional liberty; that the moderns have discovered and developed the essential element of a lawful and loyal opposition, while the ancients knew only of political factions not exchanging benches, but expelling or extirpating one another; that in modern times alone we meet with a fair penal trial, and with that august monument of civil liberty, a well-guarded trial for high treason; that the moderns have found the means of combining national vigour with the protection of individual rights; and that by international law a "system of states," as Europe has been called, can exist whose members are entire sovereign nations? Much of all this is owing to the spread and development of Christianity, and we moderns are very far from doing all we ought to do, but this does not prove Sismondi's opinion to be confirmed.

There are difficulies surrounding the teacher of politics, either exclusively belonging to our country, or at least presenting themselves here at present more decidedly. I ought not wholly to pass them over; for they shew to what degree of indulgence a teacher is entitled; but I shall select a few only, and treat of them as briefly as may be.

I believe that the family of nations to which we belong has arrived at a period in its political development in which the only choice lies between institutional and firmly established libety, whether this be monarchial or republican as to the apex of the government, on the

[article continues to top of column 2] one hand; and on the other hand, intermittent revolution and despotism, or shifting anarchy and compression, which, like the surgeon's tourniquet, may staunch the blood for a moment, but has no healing power, nor can it be left permanently on the lacerated artery without causing congestion and death. Expanding institutional liberty alone is now conservative. There has been a conflict between freedom and despotism during the whole history of our race; but never before, it seems to me, have liberty with all its fervour, and absolutism, with all its imposing power or sepulchral sculpture, stood directly opposite to one another so boldly, and perhaps so grandly, as at present. The advance of knowledge and intelligence gives to despotism a brilliancy, and the necessity of peace for exchange and industry, give it a facility to establish itself which it never possessed before. Although the political inquirer and reflecting historian know, as well as the naturalist, that life consists in the unceasing and reproductive pulsation─in the ever active principle of vitality, not in the few brilliant phenomena or in striking eruptions, yet radiant success always attracts admiration for the time being Absolutism in our age is daringly draping itself in the mantle of liberty, both in Europe and here. What we suffer in this respect, is in many cases the after-pain of Rosseauism, which itself was nothing but democratic absolutism. There is, in our times, a hankering after absolutism, and a wide-spread, almost fanatical idolatry of Success, a worship of Will, whose prostrate devotees forget that will is an intensifier and multiplier of our dispositions, whatever they are applied to, most glorious or most abhorrent, as the case may be, and that will, without the shackles of conscience or the reins of a pure purpose, is almost sure of what contemporaries call Success. It is so easy to succeed without principles! It seems to me that those grave words in that solemn conclusion of De Tocqueville's Old Regime, have a far wider application at this time than the author gave to them. He says there that his countrymen are "more prone to worship chance, force, success, eclat, noise, than real glory; endowed with more heroism than virtue, more genius than common sense; better adapted for the conception of grand designs than the accomplishment of great enterprises." *

While thus political elements are jostling and preparing for a greater struggle, it appears that in our times men are more bent than formerly on taking refuge in mere political formulas, such as universal suffrage and an absolute party. But wherever the people, fatigued by contest or disorder, go to sleep on a mere political formula, there political life and health and─ may I call it so?─civil productiveness, rapidly decline and approach extinction, at the same time that those who still choose to act are arrayed against eauh other in all the bitterness which dogmatic formulas are apt to engender or express.

To attract attention in the midst of these gusts of passion may not be an easy task. In addition I ought to mention, with reference to our own country, three points─flattery, disrepute of politics, and a certain theory which has formed itself regarding the propriety of discussion.

The people of this country have been flattered so long by optimist speakers, lecturers and authors, and the vice of exaggeration has become so common, that philosophic candour is felt by many as a lack of patriotic sympathy. The sovereign, the prince, as old writers used to call the power-holder, be he monarch or the people, likes courtiers, flatterers, and adulators, and he finds them. Truth becomes irksome, and while it is deemed heroic boldly to speak to a monarch, he who censures the sovereign in a republic is looked upon as no friend to the country.

Public affairs again have been frequently handled in such a manner and with such impunity that the word Politician has acquired a meaning which reminds us of the Athenian times, when philosophers thought it necessary to advise the seekers after truth to abstain from the agora. In former times the term Diplomatist was coupled with undesirable associations; the word Politician has now, in the minds of many, no enviable meaning. I do not conceal from myself that to me falls the duty of teaching the science of public affairs at a period of depressed public mind.

And lastly, it is a characteristic of our present public life that almost every conceivable question is drawn within the spheres of politics; when there, it is incontinently seized upon by political parties, and once within

[BEGIN FOOTNOTE] I cannot dismiss this unrivalled passage without advising my younger friends to read the whole in connexion with my remarks, from the wrods "When I examine that nation." May they do it not only remembering that much that is said in it does not apply to the French alone, but also that de Tocqueville could say what he did say without being considered by the French unpatriotic. An American citizen could not have made similar remarks of the Americans without raising a storm of general indignation. No American student of political philosophy or history should be without that little volume, The Old Regime and the Revolution, by Alexis de Tocqueville, translated by John Bonner, New York, 1858. [END FOOTNOTE]

[article continues to top of column 3] grasp of parties, it is declared improper to be treated any where except in the arena of political strife. If it be treated elsewhere, in whatever spirit, it is taken for granted that the inquiry has been instituted for grovelling party purposes. Fair and frank discussi6n has thus become emasculated, and the people submit to dictation. There is a wide class of topics of high importance which cannot be taken in hand by the most upright thinker without its being suspected that he is in the service of one party or section of the country and hostile to the other.

All this makes it─I do not say difficult to steer between the dangers; an attempt at doing this would be dishonest─but necessary to ask for a fair and patient hearing. No teacher can at any time dispense with that "favorable construction," for which the Commons of England petition the ruler at the beginning of each Parliament. An honest desire to hear truly what the speaker means is indispensable wherever human speech bridges over the cleft which separates individual from individual, but it becomes the more necessary, the more important the sphere of discussion is, and is granted the more scantily the more exciting the topic may be.

Montesquieu, in the preface of the Spirit of Laws, asks as a favor that a work of twenty years' labour may not be judged of by the reading of a moment, but that he may be judged of by the whole. I, too, placed in some respects more delicately than Montesquieu was, ask you to judge of the lectures, which I am going to deliver, by the whole and by the pervading spirit. My work is not, like Montesquieu's, a work of twenty years; it is more. Brief as this course will be, all I teach is the result of a long and checkered, an observing and I hope a thoughtful life. Montesquieu, when he asks for the favor, adds: "I fear it will not be granted." I do not make this addition' to my request. I simply speak to you as to friends, willing to hear what a man holds to be true and right in the region of political knowledge and action, the highest phase of which is civil freedom ─a man who in his boyhood saw the flows and ebbs of the Napoleonic era and heard the European cry of oppression; and has from that great time to this longed or laboured for liberty in speech and book, and in the teacher's chair, in prison and in freedom, well or wounded, in his native land and in his wedded country, and who feels that, as the one main idea through the whole life of him whom lately we have followed in our minds to his most honoured grave, was the life of Nature with all her energies, so has been the leading idea and affection of him who speaks to you, from his eariy days to this hour, in spite of all the reverses and errors of our race, political justice, the life of civil freedom─liberty, not as a pleasing or even noble object to be pursued by classes freed from the oppressive demands of material existence, but as an element of essential civilization, as an earnest demand of self-respecting humanity, as an actuality and a principle of social life─as an evidence that we are created, not in the image of those beings that are below us, but of Him that is high above us. ------------

JUDEA.-Mons. Chateaubriand remarks, that when you travel in Judea, the heart is at first filled with profound melancholy. But, when passing from solitude to solitude, boundless space opens before you, this feeling wears off by degrees, and you experience a secret awe, that, so far from depressing the soul, imparts life and elevates the genius. Extraordinary appearances every where proclaim a land teeming with miracles. The burning sun, the towering eagle, the barren fig-tree, all the pictures of Scripture, are here. Every name commemorates a mystery; every grotto announces a prediction; every hill reëchoes the accent of a prophet. God himself has spoken in these regions, dried up rivers, rent the rocks, and opened the grave. The desert still appears mute with terror, and you would imagine that it had never presumed to interrupt the silence since it heard the awful voice of the Eternal. -----------------

DANIEL WEBSTER'S COURTSHIP─Mr. Webster married the woman he loved, and the twenty years which he lived with her brought him to the meridian of his greatness An anecdote is current on the subject, which is not recorded in the books. Mr. Webster was becoming intimate with Miss Fletcher when the skein of silk, getting in a knot, Mr. Webster assisted in unravelling the snarl─then, looking up to Miss Grace, he said: "We have untied a knot; don't you think we could tie one?" Grace was a little embarrassed─said not a word ─but in the course of a few minutes she tied a knot in a piece of tape and handed it to Mr. W. This piece of tape, the thread of his domestic joys, was found after the death of Mr. Webster, preserved as one of his most precious relics. ------- THE man who read a newspaper to the entire satisfaction of another who was waiting for it, talks of going on the stage.

212 THE COURANT A SOUTHERN LITERARY JOURNAL. Letters fur the Courant. HORSE-BACK AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. NO. II.―TOCCOAH FALLS DY MOONLIGHT. DEAR CALDWELL:―The first plnce of interest which I visited among the mountains was Toccoah Falls―"on a creek of the same name. The water falls more than one hundred and eighty-five feet, perpendicular. No description can give an idea of the beauties of this fall and the surrounding scenery." This encomium by White, in his statistics of Georgia, is by no means lavish; for Deity, in creating this inimitable cascade, made for us a "thing of beauty," which will charm the traveller's eye and refresh his fancy as long as he worships nature. It is a sudden gleam of sunshine on his path; for there is nothing in the generally level aspect of the country, especially on the southern side, to arouse his anticipntions. It is, indeed, the entrance―the open sesame―to that universe of wild, rugged and wondrous sublimity that lies beyond, among the· "Southern Alleghanies." With this thought in the mind, how pleasant it is to contemplate Toccoah, and listen to her sweet voice as she seems to speak―the only way to regions of higher development and joy is through " the gate of the Beautiful! "

The narrow dell through which the "wild brook" runs below the Falls faces to the south-east, and the hills on either side descend for a half-mile, when they reach the common level of the country. Some fifty or seventy-five yards below the Falls the stream turns gently to the right; and from this point upward to the leap, the banks are exceedingly steep and precipitous. In this way there is formed an isolated picture, with just enough of the dark and sublime in the back-ground to present the matchless drapery of the cascade in the happiest light. Within this amphitheatre are a few large beech trees, designed by nature to heighten the effect of the scene, but adopted by a host of visitors as the fittest place to consign their names to immortality. It is an instinct of the pilgrim to carry relics away and leave his name behind.

To stand within this penetralia, and gaze and think and feel, is to be wooed into "newness of life" by the exquisite loveliness of the sceue around you. The wave-like fall of the water―the clouds of snowy spray into which they are dashed by the tremendous leap―the rainbow encircling the swandown bosom of the cascade―the purple hue of the mist floating away in the sunlight―give it an air of felicitous beauty indescribable. Besides this, the river makes "a clear leap" over the precipice; and the adventurous foot may clamber up the rocks behind the silvery sheet of water, where the eye feasts upon a most novel and enchanting spectacle.

The time of my visit to these Falls was most auspicious.― It was an August night; the full moon was in all her glory; and the blue sky bent oyer the scene as if in love with it.― Here and there a thin gauzy, or purple and silver-edged cloud floated on to the west. As they passed, one by one, over tpe face of the full-orbed moon, a tinge of deeper or softer gloom fell upon the Falls and landscape, and when the moon sailed out into the waveless lakes of blue, its "touch turned all bright again." No language can convey the least idea of the ever-varying, ever-enchanting loveliness, imparted to the cascade and scene around by the ætherial touches of the moonlight.

At present the only house on the road near the Falls is that of a native Anthem-ite. I called at the gate, and asked to stay the night. "Our lady" met me at the gate. "Indade, Sir, we have no room for yer horse." I replied that he could feed on the green corn; and that I desired to see the Falls by night. "An' you will go all the way up the dark ravine to-night?" "Oh! yes, ma'am!" "Well! well! get down. William ! my son ! run pull some o' the corn the pags broke down for the man's horse, and cut off the grane tops, and come by the house and get a wash-pan full of the shaled corn, which is for male, and fade 'im good: "―thus displaying a cordial hospitality, for which I was sincerely grateful.

I was soon en route for the Falls, and "William" with me. His wonderful information and loquacity on the subject of Venus' pups and the "'coon" hounds, excited my keenest apprehensions that I should be entertained with a mock-heroic while endeavouring to study and feel the scene. But at a single request he had the good sense to desist.

As I advanced, the luxuriant foliage of the vine-covered trees, shivering in the breeze and shimmering in the moonlight― the blue skies above me, melting with all the voluptuous and warm hues of a summer night, and the faint roar of the waterfall, so new to me then, and unearthly as the voice of an angel ―set my spirits in motion. There was something of real enchantment in thus going into the fairy presence of this unknown, mystical goddess of the wilderness. You know how the heart leaps and flutters when the lover, for the first time, enters the presence of his matchless fair one ; what a flood of anticipation, suspense, hope and fear gushes on the soul ! It is thus that the simple knowledge of Toccoah near ────"Takes the prisoned soul And laps it in Elysium" Vain Fancy, eager to out-rival the eye in its discernment of the naked reality, or striving to paint the coming scene truthfully, conjured up a thousand images of novelty and beauty. All was suspense and expectation, or futile effort to grasp the picture ideally, ere the eye had seen.

At the bend in the ravine above mentioned, the Falls first flashed upon me in all their captivating and transcendent loveliness. For a single moment I imagined the yellowish-grey granite walls to be a huge pile of "thunder-heads," and the snowy little stream descending, to be some strange, unaccountable phenomenon―perhaps the manna-strewn pathway of angels from earth to heaven. My next idea, which dawned instantly, as a thin cloud veiled the moon and draped the scene in sadness, was of Hagar in wilderness. Her love for Abraham―her abundoned situation―her beauty―her grief―her prayer, and the angel's voice "calling to her out of heaven "―were all limned forth inimitably in the picture before me. Neither the passion of Juliet, nor the madness of Ophelia, reigned there; but the inexpressible love of Cordelia. It was a moment for all men before they distrust the depth, the purity, and the power of woman's nature.

I gazed upon the picture, thus shaded, till imagination transformed the snowy stream, which is indistinctly tri-cleft by the rocks over which it pours, into three sleeping angels or graces. The one on the left of the cascade is an almost perfect delusion by moonlight. I shewed it to the Irish lad with me, who recognized the semblance immediately, and was wonderfully pleased with the new discovery. Again the "court-dresser, Fancy," as Locke styles it, suggested this as a "bodying forth" of "Faith, Hope and Charity." The chastened loveliness, the thrilling beauty, and the unchanging spirit of goodness that dwell in Toccoah, may well invoke such ideas from the sleepy realms of imagination.

There is another impression which I had, in common with an old mountain-poet, as he afterwards told me, who visited these Falls under similur circumstances about forty years ago. The plastic hand of the summer mgonlight was weaving its fairy web of magic over the scene. The blue sky, intensely clear in the region of the zenith, seemed to blend with the summit of the rock, and the stream appeared to gush through some open window of heaven. It was, indeed, an almost realizing sense of the "River of Life," let loose from the heavenly throne. No one can properly underst11nd the faithfulness of this fancy till he visits Toccoah by moonlight; yet no other idea, perhaps, introduces the reader or observer to so many of its indefinable attractions. The great pleasure it afforded me was heightened by the coincidence that it gave wings to a highland poet and lover forty years ago.

He must be strangely callous who could make a pilgrimage to this lovely spot without returning a better and a wiser man. To be cold and unmoved when Toccoah is pleading for "fulness even to tears," is akin to aetheism, either of belief or feeling. With all its entrancing loveliness―its goodness-impressing influence, and its manifold and multiform phases of unique beauty―it whispers into the heart a Sabbath hymn, paraphrasing the two great commandments―love to God and love to man. It is truly a personification of "Faith, Hope and Charity." It also carries preeminently within itself the image of what is genuine and angelic in woman. If I were in search of something like the sweet spell which a fair young bride, of artless grace nnd modesty, fastens on those around her; or, like the sweet sadness of a true girl when she promises to give up her youth and childhood's home for the one she loves; or, like Cordelia, when she loved Lear more in her silence and hate, than Goneril and Regan did in their empty professions and his mournfully-mad partiality, I know not where in nature I should sooner go than to the soul-stirring beauties of Toccoah by moonlight. Yours truly, WILLIE EAST.

THE following is_ from the London Critic :

"His Highnes Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte continues to print small portions of the Holy Scriptures in the different dialects of this country. His last publications of the kind are 'The Song of Solomon in the Westmoreland Dialect, from the Authorized English Version,' by the Rev. John Richardson, M. A. ; 'The Song of Solomon in the Cumberland Dialect from the Authorized Entlish Version,' by John Rayson; and 'The Song of Solomon m the Newcastle Dialect from the Authorized English Version,' by John George Forster. The following brief specimens of each of these versions will, perhaps, prove interesting to some of our readers. Westmoreland dialect: '1. T' sang o' sangs, 'at's Solomon's. 2. Let um kiss me wi't kisses uv his mooth : for thy luv's better nor wine. 3. 'Cos o' t' sniff o' thy good ointments thy neeam's as ointment teeam'd oot, that's what-for t' virgins luv the.' Cumberland dialect: 'l. The sang o' sangs, whilk is Solomon's. 2. Let him kiss me wi' the kisses o his mwouth: for thy luive is far afwore weyne. 3. Becwous o' the savor o' thy guid ointmint thy neame is ointmint teemed out, therfwore dui the meaidens luive thee.' Newcastle dialect: '1. The sang o' sangs, which is Solomon's. 2. Let him kiss me wi' the kisses o' his mooth for thy luiv is bettor nor wine. 3. Becaus o' the savur o' thy' gud ointments, thy n'yem is as ointment teemed oot, and sae the vargins luiv the.' Of the last-mentioned we shall give one more specimen, leavmg it to our readers to decide which of these three elegant versions deserves the palm ( chap. vii. v. 1): 'Hoo bonny are thy feet wi' shoon, O prince's dowtor ! the joints o' thy thees are like jewls, he wark o' the han's ov a clivor warkman.' "

IT has been inferred that Dryden wasn't opposed to sherry cobbler, from a remark he once made: "Straws may be made the instruments of happiness."

FRIEND COZZENS, he of the " Sparrow-Grass Papers," and "Acadia," gives place in his paper to the Ballad "Love me Little, Love me Long," and thus editorially alludes to its meaning: "The meaning of the first part of the sentence : ' Love me little,' is expressed in the song : "Love that is too hot and strong, Burneth soon to waste." And , Love me long,' requires no explanation, or rather could not be explained to any who did not understand it."

Where we get "Fine Old Sherry."

From an article by the well-known traveller and scholar, H. P. LELAND, (in the last Wine Press,) we clip the following items from his graphia description of a visit to Xerea, "famous for that wine corruptly called Sherry." After describing the town and the botegas, or wine store-houses, and various other matters of interest, he says : "In 1857, from 'Spain on the Mediterranean,' only 74 dozen of sherry wine, in bottles, was imported to the United States; from 'Spain on the Atlantic,' three hundred and ninety-six dozen. The sherry from the Mediterranean was probably, for the most part, from Malaga, where the manufacture of sherry from Malaga wine is immense―thousands of hogsheads being annually sent to England. In the same year, in casks, 418,079 gallons were imported into the United States from Spain on the Atlantic, while from the Mediterranean ports of Spain we imported only 65,987 gallons of sherry and San Lucar wines. Total, 544,649 gullons, including importation of sherry from England; in fact, we import more sherry in bottles from England than from Spain, the amount in this year (1857) being 1,472 dozen; from Scotland, 49 dozen, and we even imported from Hamburg ( ! ) 260 dozen. From England in casks, same year, 36,705 gallons. . "Mellado, in his 'Guia, del viagero en España,' estimates the entire annual vintage of sherry wine at 40,500 arrobas, or 162,000 gallons! and we imported 544,649 gallons in 1857. Enough said."

Names of Days―Their Origin.

The days of the week derive their names from the idols which our Saxon ancestors worshipped: The Idol of the Sun.―This idol, which represented the glorious luminary of the day, was the chief object of their worship, It is described like the bust of a man, set upon a pillar, holding, with outstretched arms, a burning wheel before his breast. The first day of the week was especially dedicated to its adoration, which they termed the Sun's Daeg; hence is derived the word SUNDAY.

The Idol of the Moon.―The next was the idol of the Moon, which they worshipped on the second day of the week, called by them Moon's Daeg, and since, by us, MONDAY. The form of this idol is intended to represent a woman habited in a short coat, and a hoop, and two long ears. The moon which she holds in her hand designates the duality.

The Idol of Tuisco.―Tuisco was at first deified as the father and ruler of the Tuetonic race, but in course of time he was worshipped as the sun of the earth. From this came the Saxon words, Tuisco's Daeg, which we call TUESDAY. He is represented standing on a pedestal, as an old and venerable sage, clothed m the skin of an animal, and holding a sceptre in the right hand.

The Idol Woden, or Odin.―Woden, or Odin, was one of the supreme divinity of the northern nations. This hero is supposed to have emigrated from the east, but from what country, or at what time, is not known. His exploits form the greatest part of the mythological creed of the northern nations, and his achievements are magnificent beyond all credibility. The name of the fourth day of the week, called by the Saxons Woden Daeg, and by us WEDNESDAY, is derived from this personage. Woden is represented in a bold attitude clad in armour, with a broad sword uplifted in his right hand.

The Idol Thor.―Thor, the eldest and bravest of the sons of Woden and Friga, was, after his parents, considered as the greatest god among the Saxons und Danes. To him the fifth day of the week, called by them Thor's Daeg, and by us THURSDAY, was consecrated. Thor is represented as sitting on a throne, with a crown of gold on his head, adorned with a circle m front, wherein were set twelve bright burnished gold stars, and with a regal sceptre in his right hand.

The Idol Friga, or Frega.―Friga, or Frega, was the wife of Woden, or Odin, and next to him the most reverend divinity among the heathen Saxons, Danes, and other northern nations. In the most ancient times, Friga, or Frega, was the same with. the goddess Hertha, or Earth. To her the sixth day of the week was consecrated, which, .by the Saxons, was written Frega's Daeg, correspondmg with our FRIDAY. Friga is represented with a drawn sword in her right hand and a bow in her left.

The Idol Seator.―The idol Seator is represented on a pedestal, whereon is placed a perch, on the sharp, prickled back of which he stood, his head uncovered and his visage lean. In his left hand he held up a wheel, and in his right hand was a pail of water, wherein were flowers and fruits, and his dress consisted of a long coat, gorted with linen. The application given to the day of his celebration is still retained. The Saxons named it Seator's Daeg, which we call SATURDAY.

RELIGION OF THE AUTHOR OF ADAM BEDE.―A letter from England says: "Some. two months since I related to you the gossip which was then in circulation that Adam Bede was written by Wiliam and Mary Howitt, the Loamshire of the book being Nottinghamshire, and the Stoneyshire, Derbyshire. The author is regarded as the exponent in its best form of the modern school of realism in poetry, fiction and art. I may add that Miss Mary Evans is no Methodist, but as I think might have been surmised from the volume itself, a spiritual Unitarian, of the earnest and better modern school, of which school many would seem to be 'not far from the kingdom of heaven.' To much the same class, I suppose, must be referred the sentiments and sympathies of the ci-devant Quaker William Howitt an his wife."―Christian Advocate.

A FRENCH BREAKFAST―Two salt-cellars and a muffin.

THE COURANT ; A SOUTHERN LITERARY JOURNAL. 213

The Courant. COLUMBIA, S. C., THURSDAY, NOV. 3, 1859. THE COURANT.

Subscriptions for the Courant will be received at the Bookstore of Mr. P. B. GLASS, in this City, where single copies can be obtained every week.

The office of the Courant has been removed to No. 144 Richardson Street, over Flanigan's Shoe-Store. WM. W. WALKER, JR., & Co. Judge O'Neall's "Bench and Bar."

We have received from the publishers, the Messrs. COURTENAY, some additional sheets of Judge O'NEALL's forthcoming volume. The paper is beautifully white, the type clear, the ink good; altogether, quite a typographical triumph for the city of Charleston. The volume will be issued very soon, we suppose, as the sheets are taken from the appendix

"Beulah."

The publishers of Miss EVANS' admirable novel announce the eighth edition as "now ready."

From the many things said by the world of newspapers, we clip the two following as samples: "Miss Evans may well be called the Charlotte Bronte of America."―Troy Whig. " We place it beside John Halifax. "―Baltimore Advocate.

One Answer to Several Letters---To Young Writers.

We have been receiving during the last two months, one or two letters per week, asking for advice and information in regard to the matter of publishing volumes of poems. To all of these inquiries we shall reply at once; each may find his or her own special question answered somewhere in what we shall say.

I. Publishing at the South is as yet a poor business : your books will not be circulated, unless you attend to it personally. Our Southern publishers can do as good work as any body at the North; witness several of the works issued by the COURTENAY's or Mr. RUSSELL in Charleston, or Mr. LIEBER's Geological Survey, and several other publications of Dr. GIBBES of this city. If you want your poems printed well and bound well, for private circulation, it can be done as well here as anywhere.

II. " What house is the best for the publication of poetry? " TICKNOR & FlELDS, of Boston, unquestionably. They will be able to present your volume to the poetry-reading public. The HARPERS and APPLETON do not like to publish poetry; nor, in fact, do any of the chief publishing establishments at the North.

III. "On what terms? " This is the sorest part of your trials. No body wants poetry lo publish―the publishers will tell you how hard it is to sell―what a dead load on their shelves such or such a book has been for years. They will not give one cent for any MS. unless the author has already made a great reputation. Publishers care not one straw for the merit of a book―the only question is, will it sell? You need, not expect any thing from the critical abilities of these men: had MILTON offered his poem to the HARPERS he would not only not have received £10 for it, but he would have been bowed out of the apartment with Pharasaic politeness, to give place for a "serious gentleman" interested in the Sewing-Machine Business.*

IV. "I have written to several publishers," says one of our correspondents, "offering the MS. of my poems, and begging them to read the volume itself, and the certificates of several eminent men in our neighbourhood. All the publishers refuse to issue on their own account, but two of them gave me estimates what it would cost me to publish the book and take the edition. What ought a 12mo. to cost?" A duodecimo will cost you from one hundred and fifty dollars up to any price, according to the style of the book. That was a terribly false notion to send '' certificates of eminent men in your, neighbourhood." A man may be a hero "on Pea-Ridge," but find himself infinitessimally diminished in New York. As I said before, publishers care not one straw for the merit of the book―so all appeals to them, "please read before you decide," will fail.

V. "If I assume the whole cost, and get the edition wellprinted, bound, etc., how can I circulate it?" Very poorly, indeed. It will, in three years, perhaps, pay you the first cost. Generally, it is an up-hill business, and I would advise you to let it alone entirely. It pays but little at best. Experto crede.

MORAL.―Console yourself with the thought that geniuses are scarcely ever appreciated by their contemporaries; that Milton, who, in his life-time, was "the blind adder who spat on the King's person," was, after a few years' sleep in the grave, "the mighty orb of song." Read D'ISRAELI on the calamities of men of genius, take heart, write for the Courant, and let the Yankee publishers rob their brother Yankees.

• Our Southern Methodists have another reason to rejoice that they are separated from those peddling Yankees. The "Northern Methodist Book Concern" has entered the field of speculation in the way of SEWING-MACHINES !

The Charleston Courier.

This old favorite ventilated an original idea last week, in the following style―certainly no compliment to our contemporaries, none whom are paid for any notices, nay! they are not even asked to "notice: "

"The Courant for this week, to be found at ' Courtenay's ' contains a notice of ' Sylvia's World,' a letter from 'Barry Gray,' concerning 'Literary Women of the South,' and other literary contributions or interest.

"W. W. Walker, Jr., Esq., the active proprietor and associate editor, is re-visiting our city on business connected with that legacy, of which report has been made. One advantage has already been 'realized' from the legacy, in advance of any payment―it has secured some notices for the Courant, which, however deserved, would not, perhaps, have been given under other circumstances."

John R. Thompson.

In the course of lectures announced by the Mercantile Library Association of New York, we find that our able contemporary of the Southern Literary Messenger is to deliver one on the fine topic, "Fools and their Uses." We predict that it will be worth listening to, but we have our doubts as to its being perfectly appreciated in Gotham. Boast as they may of their Metropolitan wisd,om, we have seen the finest sort of wit ignored by the audience there. Local hits " bring down the house," but of a genuine classic pun they have no sort of comprehension―those audiences.

Au Contraire.

The Mobile Mercury says : "' The Literary Association of Princeton, N. J., has offered James Gordon Bennett $100 for a lecture. He refuses, saying that the time is worth $5,000 to him, and that lecturing is the business of none but literary loafers.'

"This shows more sense in James G. than it does in the young men of Princeton. He is about right in what he says of literary loafers, and quite right in declining to lecture. He has survived his lines to Mary Ann, but a lecture would kill him decidedly dead.

Quite wrong, dear Mercury. A man who can survive such deed as "Mary Ann," can do or suffer any thing!

A Desirable Book.

One of our exchanges says: "CHARLES DAWSON SHANLY, well known among litterateurs as an able art and dramatic critic, has just completed a translation of ' The Mysteries of the Desert,' from the French of Colonel DU COURET, a noted Arabian adventurer. It will be published, we understand, in good season for Christmas holidays' reading."

To all who like to read of wild and romantic adventure, as well as to all who desire to know something of the country described, this volume will be vastly agreeable for the holidays.

Mrs. Whitman on Poe's Critics.

The Home Journal says: "Rudd & Carleton have a work in press which will be likely to create some interest, among the literati at least. The book in question is entitled "Edgar A. Poe and his Critics." The author is Mrs. Whitman, of Providence, one of the ladies to whom Poe was engaged to be married after the death of his first wife."

We should like to know how our contemporary happens to be so marvellously well acquainted with Mrs. WHITMAN'S private affairs. "One of the ladies !" Can't they give the world the benefit of the entire list? Really, our neighbours of the North are getting entirely too "personal," (bloody word, which heads the column!) We expect such things from the New York Herald, but it does not strike us as at all a desirable feature to be " developed " in the Home Journal.

Here is another item of the same style, shewing to what extent this business of retailing private matters to the public eye has gone. Gossip is rising in New York, and it is the duty of such papers as our contemporary just named to aid in putting it down:

"Miss Martha Haines Butt, of Norfolk, Virginia, the well-known authoress, is not, as rumor has circulated, the young Virginian lady whose intention to go upon the stage we announced some weeks since. Miss Butt, we learn, has no thoughts, at present, of leaving the literary field―in which she has begn an earnest labourer―but is busily engaged in supervising for the press her new work, "A Wreath of Buds," which will be publiehed in a few weeks. The report that Miss Butt is engaged to a Cuban gentleman, is also, we understand, wholly without foundation."

The Origin of "Mouton."

From COZZENS' Wine Press we take the following: "MOUTON.―The fine Bordeaux wine, known as 'Mouton,' derives its name from a witty expedient of Henry IV. to quiet a prosy minister. At a court dinner given to certain ambassadors, one of the guests laid siege to the king's royal ear. The jolly monarch, in order to evade the discussion of a tiresome subject, and yet not depart from the duties enjoined by the rites of hospitality, pleasantly interrupted his guest at the close of every long-winded sentence by saying, 'Mais monseigneur, revenons à nos moutons,' and so emptied his glass in place of giving an answer. Whereupon the king's wine from a certain district was coupled with the jest, and was known ever after as ' Mouton.' "

IRVING'S "Life of Washington" is having a larger sale than any of his previous works.

LITERARY NOTICE.

"THE LIFE, TRAVELS AND BOOKS OF ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY BAYARD TAYLOR. New York: Rudd & Carleton. M D CCC LIX.''

We are told that Queen Elizabeth was so incensed at Dr. Hayward's history of the deposition of Richard the Second, that she sent the author to the tower. Some time afterwards she asked Lord Bacon whether there was any treason in the book. "Not any treason, your majesty, but very much felony." Upon her inquiring in what respect, he replied "because he hath stolen so many of his sentences and conceits from Cornelius Tacitus.''

This "popular" life of HUMBOLDT is precisely of this stamp. It is an omnium gatherum of matters concerning the great philosopher, collected from all sorts of books, by all sorts of authors, from HUMBOLDT down to BAYARD TAYLOR. Professor HERMAN KLENCKE's Life of HUMBOLDT (Leipsic, 1859) is very much abused in the preface, and yet very much used for making up the volume. Then comes a bodily appropriation of HUMBOLD's "Voyage aux Regions Equinoctiales ;" when, presto ! change! THOMASINA ROSS' translation is succeeded by Mrs. SABINE, HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS and JOHN BLACK, in the same line. Then Mr. BAYARD TAYLOR, the ever-tiresome, never-tired, is called in to contribute something from his "Cyclopoodia of Modern Travel." "These," says this modest compiler―so modest that he is anonymous―"these, as far as the author (?) remembers, are the principal sources to which he is indebted. He should mention, perhaps, (!) the various French and English encyclopredias, from which he has filled up his sketches of some of HUMBOLDT's contemporaries ; BUT ENCYOLOPÆDIAS HAVE NO AUTHORS, as every body knows; besides, they are made for the very purpose to which he has put them. The same may be said of the journals of the day." That is about as cool as any thing we ever read. "Encyclopædias have no authors"―that is to say, that this compiler imagines that people make encyclopædias by stealing from something previously written, as he has done in the "popular" biography of HUMBOLDT. Newspapers and magazines have no authors, and, therefore, he reasons, he has a right to cabbage every thing in his reach, without any sort of acknowledgement beyond "I should mention, perhaps," etc. Mr. Compiler finds a splendid article in a review, magazine or newspaper―they being precisely like the encyclopædias authorless, and made for the purpose of being stolen―our worthy gentleman at once possesses himself of the valuable public property, and uses it for his next book. Be it also recollected, he is not in the miserable condition of Prof. KLENCKE, who, says our compiler, obtained much of his material from HUMBOLDT himself, but failed to make a good book, in spite of his "excellent opportunity.'' "He seemed," says our compiler, "to have no idea of writing, beyond its being a means of conveying facts. His facts are reliable, but bunglingly arranged, without order or method.'' We would observe, parenthetically, that ''facts" are generally "reliable.'' Our excellent writer goes on to say, "he entirely lacks the chief requisite of a biographer―the art of making his subject attractive. Still, he is reliable," etc. Our readers will perceive that the compiler sadly needs an accurate knowledge of the English language. The sentences just quoted are villainous; no one writes a book; it is always "made;" i. e., compiled. Facts are spoken of as if the word were synonymous with statements, and that wretchedly mis-used word "reliable" stuck in on every occasion. Our compiler ought to know all about the faults of other authors (?) in the matter of "not making their subject attractive," for, to our certain knowledge, he is himself an adept in the art. Seldom have we opened a volume with such eager expectations as we cherished when first we saw this life of HUMBOLDT; never have we closed a book with such a disappointment as this hotch-pot caused us. It is, in short, a mere string of dates; a bare statement of facts; the skeleton of a biography. There is no soul in the thing; the compiler has no idea of HUMBOLDT at all, and has signally and most ridiculously failed to give any thing like an accurate pourtraiture of this truly great man.

The compiler tells us that "the first five chapters of Book 2d, are taken from HUMBOLDT' s 'Voyage aux regions equinoctiales.' As these chapters cover an important epoch in HUMBOLDT'S life, it was thought advisable to let him tell hie own story," etc. Now, as a mere matter of literary curiosity, we beg such of our readers as have it in their power, to get HUMBOLDT'S "Voyage," and after having read the original, take up this medly of RUDD & CARLETON, and read from page thirty-five. All the interest, all the fire, all the soul of HUMBOLDT'S narrative has been utterly lost: and the facts are recited in the most prosaic style imaginable―doubtless so made by our compiler, with the view to suit his double design of producing a work at once "popular," and making his subject attractive.

The literary people of New York held a meeting some months ago to pay the proper respect to the memory of HUMBOLDT. At that meeting, of course, men of various mental gifts and diverse culture expressed themselves―among the rest, Dr. FRANCIS LIEBER made some remarks. Short as they were, they contained more of the proper appreciation of HUMBOLDT, than does this stout volume ; and we would throw out the sug