LITTELLS LIVING AGE.No. 411.3 APRIL, 1852. From the British Quarterly Review. The Ji4fe of John Sterling. By THOMAS CARLYLE. Chapman and Hall. 1851. EVERY mans life is a tragedydeep in interest, varied in struggle, solemn in conclusion. But in the history of the life of most men, no one knows aught of the tragedy save the principal actor. That which his fellows know is no more the tragedy, than the calf-skin is the poem. It is no uncommon fate for ordinary men to be sepultured in still more ordinary biographies. Naturalists tell of a sort of beetle, whose prime object in life appears to he to digthe graves of other nameless flies. He is thought to solace himself, after his labors, by subsisting on the remains which he has entombed; and we believe it is pretty much the same with a certain class of biographers. But here and there, it happens that the biography is so much more remarkable than its subject, that it suggests the old comparison of flies in amber; and, without deeming it necessary to compare Mr. Sterling to the insect, or Messrs. Hare and Carlyle to the inflammable gum, we shall not be far wrong in asserting that two biogra- phies so remarkable have rarely, if ever, been written of one man so little noteworthy. And yet, let us not be accused of speaking lightly of the dead. The memory of John Ster- ling, to those who know him by hearsay or by reading, is like the memory, dim, yet pleasant, of a sweet strain of music. It conveys, not ideas, but emotions: It does not so mnch inform the understanding as impress the heart. There is something profoundly melancholy in the Mezentian union of lively soul and sickly body. There is something to make one tremble in the clearly developed influence which sickness and solitude exercised in confusing the judgment, by confound- ing external facts with internal impressions. The invalid has a gleam of health. He takes a duracy. He exerts himself in all manner of schemes for the good of the parish. His aim is to awaken the minds of the people, to arouse their conscience, to make them feel their own sinfulness, their need of redemption. But the clouds return after the rain. Disease resumes its power. He loses sight of th.e practical object of Christianity, and gropes in a darkness peopled by such ghastly phantasms as Strauss Leben Jesu. Let it not be understood that we lean to the notions of those theorists who charge against the body the weakness or waywardness of the mind who identify sin with disease, or who ascribe peculiar forms of belief to peculiar physical organ- izations. But no one can have suffered under any nervous malady without knowing bow every exter- nal fact and internal emotion is colored by the disease; and it is surely no unlikely supposition that Sterlings constantly recurring illness affected, to a certain degree, a judgment which, not nat- urally strong, seems always to have been to a large extent under the control of his imagination. But without theorizing further on the influence of bodily health on mental soundness, or discuss- ing too closely poor Sterlings claim to two biog ccccxi. LIVING AGE. VOL. XRX XII. 1 raphies, the fact remains that a man to whom attaches no public interest, a man with but slender claims to literary notice, has had his life made the subject of literary labor by two men, each very much his superiors in public notoriety. There is something of the droll in the whole proceeding. We understand that, on Sterlings death, he left, as literary executors, his two chief friends, Archdeacon Hare and Mr. Carlyle; and it is not too much to conclude that a certain jealousy pervaded the mind of each, as to the share the other was likely to take of this sacred trust. The archdeacon was naturally anxious lest the known tendencies of the philosopher of Chelsea should tempt him to work up the materials left behind into a shape exceedingly distasteful to the orthodox feelings and Christian prepossessions of the public. He, no doubt, dreaded that if Carlyle were the sculptor, the statue of his deceased friend would come forth, clad, not in his habit as he lived, with something of the garb and appearance of a minister of the Church of England, but girt with the dress, as it might happen, of a Parsee, or an Indian, or a Scandinavian heroworshipper of the Sun, of Vishnu, or of Thorbut with nothing of the semblance of Christianity about him. Accordingly, Archdeacon Hare used every ex- ertion to secure to himself the office of dealing as he might with these questionable materials, and he put forth two rather corpulent volumes, which we have noticed in a former number.* It was not within the sphere of our purpose to discuss the propriety or prudence of Archdeacon Hares con- duct in printing, as he does, with very feeble com- ments, expressions of opinion, on theological svb- jects, which are totally at variance from the doctrines and articles of that church of which he is. a prominent officer; but there can be no doubt that. his object was, not to put forth his friends religious. peculiarities in strong relief, but, as far as possi-. ble, to do the reverse; always bearing in mind, that love to his memory was not altogether to. swamp the fact of his friends theological history,. and always having before him the dread of a rival Life, on Pantheistic principles, from the other executor. In this affectionate object Mr. Hare has utterly failed; and he has brought down upon the memory of John Sterling a storm of denunciation, which,. while levelled particularly at him, has not spared his biographer, and has brought before the public eye, as accomplices in Sterlings theological criminality, persons who had scarcely even heard. of the opinions which they were accused of abetting. Injustice of every kind is sure to defeat itself, says the archdeacon, in speaking of a very different subject, and we are not sure that a better illustra- tion could be devised for the principle, than that which is presented by the history of this unfor- tunate biography. Injustice is done to the notorious heterodoxies of Sterling, by the ill. judged affection of a friend who ought not to have been his biographer. The benevolent trick is. detected; biographer and biographee are alike. British Quarterly Review, No. XV., Art. 8. CARLYLE S LIFE OF STERLING. denounced, and the imp of neologyso carefully bottled by the one executorwhen the other executor draws the cork, expands into a gigantic demon of Pantheism. At the same time, we do not altogether under- stand this proceeding on the part of Mr. Carlyle. In the second paragraph of his Life occurs the following passage After some consultation on it, (Sterlings dying message,) and survey of the difficult and delicate considerations involved in it, Archdeacon Hare and I agreed that the whole taste of selecting what writings were to he reprinted, and drawing up a biography to introduce them, should be left to him alone ; and done without interference of mine, as accordingly it was, in a manner surely far superior to the common, in every good quality of editing ; and visibly every- where bearing testimony to the friendliness, the piety, perspicacity, and other gifts and virtues of that eminent man. The italics in this quotation are ours, and we ask, how, in the name of common honesty, dares Mr. Carlyle to come forward with his biography,. after thus pledgin~, himself to leave the task to Archdeacon Hare? He finds no fault with the manner in which the task was performed on the contrary, he gives it quite as much praise as it deserves. He does not allege that any important facts were left out. In truth, the whole life is so barren of incidents, that he is compelled to eke out a whole chapter with the details of a hurricane in the island of St. Vincent, and three whole chapters with the tale of Sterlings connexion with a mad- cap expedition of Spanish exiles, which ended in a fusillade by which a relation of his perisheda passage in his history, by the hye, which Sterling neVer could bear to hear talked of, and which the archdeacon disposes of in a few lines. Well, then; why did Mr. Carlyle persist in writing this most unnecessary hook? Simply because one of his correspondents, who is evidently a person whom our author sees every morning when he shaves that cynic beard of his, has discovered that Hares book has a sin which is ruinous to his task as biographer; and this sin is, that he takes up Sterling an a clergyman merely. Now this statement is aimply untrue, as any one may see who chooses to wade through the grim dulness of the archdeacons pages. But what if true it were? It can never excuse the dishonesty of Mr~Carlyle in first pledging himself to leave the task of biog- rapher and editor to his friend, and then, because Sterling was not made quite enough of a heathen to please him, writing another Life himself. This correspondent dodge is a very contempt- ible way of escaping the personal responsibility which must adhere to statements of opinion made in one s own name, and professedly from one s own pen. Surely a man like Mr. Carlyle, holding so high a place in English literature, and putting on the brave in appearance so often, might muster up courage to say the thing himself, or should leave it altogether unsaid. But our author would not seem to be capable of seeing the meanness and poltroonery of this trick. For he hegan with it in Sartor Resartus, the first piece of goods exposed for sale by him on his .own account; and here, in his last vendible commodity, it comes upon us as boldlf as everworn indeed into a dinginess and threadbare- ness, that could hardly be matched by the oldest hackney~coach in London some thirty years ago, but as incapable as that four-wheeled cojicern of blushing for the service it has seen. Whenever a piece of anti-christianism or of anti-theism more spicy than usual comes across him, it is felt that. it would not do for Thomas Carlyle to say that. The probable cost, in such case, would be sundry in- conveniences in the way of the profitable and re- spectable, which our author is by no means eager to encounter. So straiuhtwa a y, speaker is in- vented, in the shape of an old manuscript, or of a person with some outlanc~sb name; or else the stale newspaper fashion of our own correspondent is resorted to. And thus what the philosopher would fain have said, but dared not, is said in para- graphs marked by commas stretching conspicuously from top to bottom down the margin. The reader pauses as he reads, waxes warm, boles thunder at Mr. Carlyle, who, having forecast of the explosion, deems it enough to say, with a certain guileless and honorable ancient Thou canst not say I did it. The least endurable among shams is a sham brave- rywhen will the hero of Chelsea have done with it? In the case now before us, the words which our author puts into the mouth of his pseudo-correspond- ent have nothing of the heterodox in them; they are merely such as he might well be inclined to disown, as being so absurd and unintelligible; and secondly, because, if susceptible of any meaning, the meaning is most graceless and unbecoming A pale, sickly shadow in torn surplice, is pre- sented to us here, weltering be~vildered amid heaps of what you call Hebrew old clothes ; wrestling with impotent impetuosity to free itself from the baleful imbroglio, as if that had been its one func- tion in life. Now what does the correspondent mean by this sentence? Evidently that the struggle of an earnest mind to reconcile faith and reason, the voice of Scripture and the echo of philosophy, is of so contemptible a character that it is to be spoken of in language which might describe a quarrel bet~veen two Jews in Rag-fairwhile the belief which in all ages and all conditions has smoothed the pillow of the dying, and caused many a timid woman to gaze on deathhorrible death, with courage, tiny, with exultation, is to he sneered at by a man who calls himself a phibosopberan acute, dispassionate, unprejudiced, earnest thinker as a baleful imbroglio. Did we think Christianity a fiction, our impression is, that we should feel obliged to pity the man who could speak of it, or of the questions with which it concerns itself, in such drunken phrase as this. Sterlings two hiographers seem to have been his chief friends, at least towards the close of his life, and exercised upon his opinions a kind of an- tagonistic influence. But the Abriman of Chelsea had clearly carried it hollow against the Ormuxd of Herstmonceux ; and hence, for one reason among many, Mr. Carlyle could not be satisfied with the rival biography. And yet, on his own principles, it is surely an ungracious task to attempt to prove that the friend with whom he had walked in near acquaintance- ship for many years, and who is now gone from him forever, felt when he left him that he was, to use his own melancholy words, treading the com- mon road into the great darkness. If he bad suc- ceeded in persuading the ductile nature of his dis- ciple that the world was filled with abysses of conflicting disbelief, and sham-belief, and Bedlam delusion, (p. 9,) that the old spiritual highways 2 CARLYLE S LIFE OF STERLING. 3 and recognized paths to the eternal, are now all kind than the portrait of Coleridge? Coleridge torn up and flung in heaps, submerged in unuttera- sat on the hrow of Highgate hill, in these years, ole boiling mud-oceans of hypocrisy and unbelieva- looking down on London and its smoke tumult, like bility, of brutal living atheism, and damnable dead a sage escaped from the inanity of lifes battle; putrescent cant; supposing him to have assured attracting towards him the thoughts of innumerable his pupil of all this, is there anything so triumph- brave souls still engaged there ; the ascription vo antly satisfactory in the success, that he must needs him of a magician character; the purring softness trumpet it forth long after the poor object of his of the sneer as to his knowing the secret of believ- wayward powers has gone from his side into that ing by the reason what the understanding future, where the consequences of present error may had been obliged to tbrow out as incredible; the be far other than our philosopher supposes! In this birds-eye view of London, which makes Highgate view there is a Mephistopheles feeling running and Hampstead hills so remarkable; the personal through the whole volume, which we are at a loss sketch of face, manner, walk, tones, to the very to understand except on the authority of a much older snuffle; the raciness of the quotations of his dis- volume, which teaches us that men are sometimes courseall are inimitable. Not less delicious is surrendered to the delusions they have chosen. the quiet rehearsal of the vast promises and null Some simple folk have been pleased to see, in the performances of the inspired dreamer. Still such narrative of~ rebdeacon Hare, that the gifted youth, sentences as the following do not carry immediate John Sterling, may be regarded as having had some conviction : What the light oJ your mind, which goodsome Christian thing in him even to the last. is the direct inspiration of the Almighty, pronounces Whereupon, forth comes Mr. Carlyle, who, with incrediblethat, in Gods name, leave uncredited; all the dexterous handling he can bring to the sub- at your peril do no try believing that. Leaving ject, endeavors to show that it was not so; that the out of the discussion the question what is meant by seeming Christianity of his friend was only seeming the light of your mind, the exhortation contained at best, and that at the last every vestir,e of that in this oracular sentence is somewhat obscure, for obsolete affair had vanished from hitn. As our it is not explained how under any circumstances amiable manipulator makes his way towards this there can be the slightest temptation to believe that conclusion, he looks toward the disappointed ones which the faculty wherewith we believe pronounces with the kind of glee upon his muscles for which to be unworthy of credit. Mr. Carlyle takes a bad we shall not try to find an adjectivesaying, So fourpenny bit in change from the cad of the Chelsea much, good people, for your pious John Sterling; omnibus; the light of his mind pronounces the you see what I did for hun in that way ! In the coin to be sp& rioos not questionable, but down- whole history of infidel literature, we know of right pewter :~it surely is most unnecessary to nothing to exceed this. Yet this is the man whom exhort the philosopher in Gods name to refuse some Christian ministers can be vain to reckon to take it. The human mind may err, the light among their friends and familiar acquaintance; which illuminates it in its search for truth may and this is the book, too, which some of the said sometunes fail, so that even in cases where a deci- ministers can recommend to the youth under their sive judgment has been given, it is not impossible influence ! We wish we could believe in the ex- that it may be a mistaken one; but the common tinction of the race called wolves in sheeps cloth- case is that where the judgment is not given at all, of this nature, we m ingwe wish we could regard phenomena of this and in cases ust surely appeal complexion as unknown even among professed evan- to that probability which is the guide of life, and gelical nonconformists. weigh the decisions to which others with superior But a closer investigation of Archdeacon Hares light to ourselves have come, before we conclude Lifeof Sterling will serve to explain the reason either on theone side or the other. which induced Mr. Carivie to follow with his sup- Mr. Carlyle, among other of his many peculiar- plement. Pantheism, oi~ Carlyleism, or Nihilism, ities, has the peculiarity of throwing out, in a or whatever we may call the creed which consists word, what is either a monstrous fallacy, or the in believing that no creed is possible, and that result of a long train of patient investigation none of the many things we are in doubt about, rightly conducted. A. remarkable instance of this and need to have demonstrated and rendered prob- habit is to be found in his chapter on Coleridge. able, can by any alchemy be made a religion for In his peculiar Lemprieres Dictionary vein, be us, is no sure preservation against a very vulgar talks of Coleridge as a modern Ixion and ascribes failing, the failing of vanity. Now, it does so to him the parentage of strange centaurs, spectral happen that the name of Carlyle is only twice men- Puseyzsms, monstrous illusory hybrids, and ecelesi-. tioned by Archdeacon Hare in the whole of his astical chimeras, which now roani the earth in a book, o far as we can discover, and in the few in- very lamentable manner ! We will not quarrel stances in which it occurs in quotations from Ster- with the mythology of the passage, although Hesiod hogs letters and papers given in the Life might have been at issue as to the family tree of eight we think in allfour at least are accompa- Chimera, who, if we mistake not, was daughter of nied by very questionable annotations : Inade- the Serpent,* not of Ixion; for we should be ex- quacy of Carlyles views ; his Chartism, full ceedingly sorry to take spectral Puseyism out of of inconsistencies and fallacies ; his Heroes, such good company; and yet, such is our distrust on the whole, more free from delusive paradox of Mr. Carlyles opinion, when any theological than his other works ; Thirlwalls History, topic comes to be discussed, that we had rather not superior to all in English for depth and compass take even this genealogical theory for granted. Is unlessprepare to laughCarlyles. Nine iliw it not rather the case that Coleridge and Puseyism lachrymce! Here is the true cause of this Opus are codrdinate developments of one principle, or m jus. Bitt how strange that such a feeling should rather of one class of tendencies, and, accordingly, be indulged by a man who cannot write on any sub- stand to each other not in the position of cause and ject without exercising a mesmeric influence on his effect? readers! The thoughtful youth of England, when the lull What, for example, can be more perfect of its See Ilesiods Theogony, v. 319. CARLYLE S LIFE OF STERLING. which succeeded the great continental war gave opportunity to look around and within, could not but feel dissatisfied with the dead condition of the Church of England. But there is a tendency in human natureone of its noblest tendenciesto refer things to principles, and to assume that great facts like the Establishment are not founded on mere mockeryand delusion, but rest upon a principle of some sort or other, however much the wood, hay, stubble, of the super- structure may have concealed the principle upon which it was founded. Hence the eagerness with which men like Sterling listened to Coleridges theory of a church. Hence, again, the earnest in- genuity which has succeeded so far in transforming the hard, formal orthodoxy of the old high-church school into such developments as are presented at Wells-street and St. Barnabas. But the worst of it is, that we never know what is the ground-work of these apophthegmatic reve- lations. It may be a train of reasoningit may be, to use Mr. Carlyles own polite words thrice refined pabulum of transcendental moonshine. And when we get to more important subjects than either Puseyism or the Colerid,ian philosophy, the question deepens and becomes one of anxious inter- est. Who told Mr. Carlyle that the course of pious genius towards the eternal kingdom~~ is grown more dark and abstruse than in the days of our fathers What process of argument has given him the conclusion, that Parkness and the mere shadow of death envelop all things from pole to pole; and in the raging gulf-currents, offering us will-of-wisps for loadstarsintimating that there are no stars, nor ever were, except certain old Jew ones which have now gone out l We may ask these questions. We may surmise that Mr. Carlyles love of the style of Jean Paul has become a kind of monomania, so that when he begins a sentence, after the manner of Richter, he forgets everything except the picturesque. But there are many, and those from the classes which sway the worlds opinion, who will not look so closely into the matter, and ~vho, when Mr. Carlyle tells them that the old Jew stars are gone out, will jump to a conclusion of a description far from harmless. If Mr. Carlyle were a theological, or even a philo- sophical writerif he had carefully enunciated the results of an elaborate process of reasoning, and that elaborate process of reasoning clearly pointed to the result which in these words he proclaims with about as much reverence as a flying newsman roaring through the streets the coup-ddtat, or the resignation of Lord Palmerston ;if he could refer to a well-digested and intelligible argument in support of his views, and having the authority of his great name, there might be some excuse for this sort of writing; but it is really beneath the dignity of a man of his literary reputation, to cast insinuations, and throw out hints, aimed at the very foundation of Christianity, without having the manliness to give plain reasons for the opinions which he is evidently afraid to avow. It was thus with Gibbonhe never reasoned, he only sneered. He never gave you proofshe only insinuated falsehood, without descending to the cost of proof. Our older Gibbon has had his reward, and our modern one will have his also. It is not now known, says Mr. Carlyle, in pursuing his illustration of the oblivious baseness of the age in which we live, That none or all of the many things we are in doubt about, and need to have demonstrated and rendered probable, can by any alchemy be made a religion for us; but are and must continue a baleful, quiet or un- quiet, Hypocrisy for us ; and bringsalvation do we fancy? I think it is another thing they will bring and are, on till hands, visibly bringing, this good while! This sentence is hard to construebeing a pure specimen of the Hieratic Carlyleebut being in- terpreted, we believe its author to mean, that the great truths on which religion most be founded, and an acknowledgment and appreciation of ~vhich must be prior to all religion, are truths which do not admit of syllogistic verification, but stand more intimately connected with mans consciousness than any formal argument can possibly do. But these words will unfortunately bear a very different meaning, and one which strikes at the root of all historical evidence as applied to Christianity. The historical facts of Christianity are not the religion they do not bring salvation to us ; but unless we are enabled to combine the fundamental truths of mans moral consciousnesstruths which Mr. Carlyle considers to be prior to all argumentwith the historical facts of the religion ; unless we can see first the necessity of salvation, and secondly, the truth of the historical assertion that Jesus is the Christ, it is impossible that our religion can go one step beyond deism. The claims of Christianity to the acceptance of mankind are not to be disposed of by an indirect assertion forming one clause of a paragraph, the direct object of which is a denuncia- tion of the darkness, cowardice, and ob- livious baseness of the age. We should account it a great crime to bring railing accusations against any man, but specially so against a man to whom the literary world is under such obligations as Mr. Carlyle. But we can- not help thinking that the habit in which he seems more and mote to indulge, of snarling whenever he can get an opportunity at a faith which he cannot but wish true, is fUlowing the rule of habit, and growing stronger by indulgence. There is what we deem a very melancholy instance of it to be found in the narrative before us. (Part ii., c. x., p. 278.) He is relating an instance of self-devotion in a Cornish miner, which had roused Sterlings genial nature into very praiseworthy exertion. In a certain Cornish mine, siiid the newspapers, duly specifying it, two miners, deep down in the shaft, were engaged putting in a shot for blasting they had completed their affair, and were about to give the signal for being hoisted up. One at a time was all their coadjutor at the top could anage, and the second was to kindle the match, and then mount with all speed. Now it chanced while they were both still below, one of them thought the match too long tried to break it shorter ; took a couple of stones, a flat and a sharp, to cut it shorter ; did cut it of the due length; but, horrible to relate, kindled it at the same time, and both were still below ! Both shouted vehemently to the coadjutor at the windlass, both sprang at the basket; the windlass man could not move it with both. Here was a moment for poor miner Jack, and poor miner Will! Instant, horrible death hangs over bothwhen Will generously resigns himself; Go aloft, Jack, and sits down. Away; in one minute I shall be in heaven. Jack bounds aloft; the explosion instantly follows, bruises his face as he looks over ; he is safe above ground :and poor Will? Descending eagerly, they find Will, too, as if by miracle, buried under rocks which had arched themselves over him, and little injured ; he, too, is brought up safe, and all ends joyfully, say the news- papers. .4 So far the tale; now for the comment of the philosopher who hates cant Such a piece of manful promptitude, and salutary human heroism, was worth investigating. It was in- vestigated; found to be accurate to the letterwith this addition and explanation, that Will, an honest, ignorant, good nran, entirely given up to .Miethodism, had been perfect in the faith of assurance ; certain that he should get to heaven if he died ; certain that Jack would not, which had been the ground of his decision in that great moment. The Methodist hero has a subscription made for him, and Mr. Carlyle ends by telling us that he is a prosperous, modest dairyman, thankful for the upper light and sqfety from the wrath to come. The italics are ours; and we think we may fairly ask, if this man had been a Buddhist or a Mahommedan, should we have had these sneers about ignorant goodness, and safety from the wrath to come B We believe not; and perhaps, also, Mr. Carlyle will tell us whether he thinks it his duty to carp at convictions the truth of which he can- not gainsay l and to cast ridicule on that which is either solemn matter of belief, or, at all events, matter not discussed so far as to lead to philosophi- cal indifferentisni in the case of nine out of ten of his readers Safety from the wrath to come. Awful words! Eternity behind us and eternity before; a consciousness of guilt ; a premonition of punishment ; a certainty that we too must go the common road into the great darkness ;and this apostle of the new creed standing by to light us on a way, which is to him as great a blank as to our- selves, with that miserable lucifer match of his, in the shape of a small joke, which goes out in foul- ness, and leaves the darkness as deep and more noisome than before! And this gibing about such things, and at such momentsthis is wisdomthe new, the better philosophy! There is but one feature more to notice in this grievous book, and that is, the selection of letters. The first letter which appears as written to the biographer, is dated very shortly after the begin- ning of the acquaintance, and turns entirely on Sartor Resartus, which had then been just pub- lished. It is, in fact, devoted to the biographer, and only interesting so far as it shows what Sterling thought of him. It is pretty evident, however, that the biographer thinks the public will be interested to know what Sterling did think of him; although, perhaps, opinions of this nature would figure as well in a life of Carlyle by Sterling, were such a thing possible, as in a life of Sterling by Carlyle. Most of the remaining letters have not much to interest the general reader, and for the most part contain the ordinary staple of a gossiping and friendly cor- respondence. But the last which is printed is one of a very peculiar character. It is dated Aug. 10, 1844, about five weeks before death put at rest the active brain and affectionate heart of the writer. The letter is evidently written under pressure. It is a message of farewell, but not the free and un- restrained expression of feeling which in the case of an intimacy like that of Sterling and Carlyle, would have been only what might be looked for at so solemn a juncture. To Thomas Carl yle, Esq., Chelsea, London. Hillside, Ventuor, Aug. 10th, 1844. Mv DEAR CARLYLEFOr the first time for many months it seems possible to send you a few words: 5 merely, however, for remembrance and farewell. On higher matters there is nothing to say. I tread the common road into the great darkness, without any thought of fear, and with very much of hope. Cer- tainty, indeed, I have none. With regard to you and me I cannot begin to write; having nothing for it but to keep shut the lid ofthose secrets with all the iron weights that are in my power. Towards me it i~ still more true, than towards England, that no man has been and done like you. Heaven bless you! If I can lend a hand when THERE, that will not be wanting. It is all very strange, but not one-hun- dredth part so sad as it seenis to the standers-by. Your wife knows my mind towards her, and will believe it without asseverations. Yours to the last, JOHN STERLING. On higher matters there is nothing to say. Nine years and a half of constant intercoursethe intercourse of philosopher and scholar, of tutor and pupiland, at the end of all, when the scholar is looking over the brink of the precipice respecting which he has so often speculated, he has nothing to say to the tutor who has been so long inculcating the encouraging doctrine, that the old spiritual highways and recognized paths to the Eternal are all submerged in unutterable mud oceans of hypoc- risy and unbelievability, of brutal living atheism and damnable dead putrescent cant. Surely it is marvellous that this should be the letter which the tutor chooses to print! The pupil cannot enter into the discussion of the connexion which had existed between them. He keeps shut the lid of those secrets with all the iron weights in his power. What secrets ~But he cannot help look- ing down the face of the cliff. If I can lend a hand when THERE, that will not be wanting. One might smile at the promise, were it not so sad. The poor human soul, whirled down the resistless surges of necessity, what can he avail to help his fellow, following hard after him, wrapt by the next billow, slave of the same tremendous fate l But we will riot leave the dying man under the impression which this letter would convey. Let us think of it as of the half-ludicrous sacrifice from the death-bed of Socrates. Let us leave the paganizing biographer, and turn to the pages of him who has risked much and suffered much in endeavoring to christianize his hero. From Archdeacon Hare we learn that On the 16th September there was i~ great and sudden increase of weakness, which convinced him and those around him that the end was at hand. In this conviction, he said, I thank the all-wise One. his sister remarked, the next day, that he was unusually cheerful. He lay on the sofa quietly, telling her of little things that he wished her to do for him, and choosing out books to be sent to his friends. On the 18th, he was again comforted by letters from Mrs. Trench and Mr. Mill, to whom he took pleasure in scribbling some little verses of them- selves. Then writing a few lines in pencil, he gave them to his sister, saying, This is for you ; you will care more for this ! The lines were Could we but hear all Natures voice, From glowworm up to sun, T would speak with one concordant sound, Thy will, 0 God, be done ! But hark, a sudden, mightier prayer From all mens hearts that live, Thy will be done in earth and heaven, And Thou my sins forgive! CARLYLE S LIFE OF STERLING. GIITZLAFF S LIFE OF TAOIJ-KWANG. These were the last words he wrote. He murmured over the last two lines to himself. He had been very quiet all thnt day, little inclined to read or speak, until the evening, when he talked a little to his sister. As it grew dark, he appeared to be seeking for something, and, on her asking what he wanted, said, Only the old Bible, which I used so often at Herstmonceux in the cottages, and which generally lay near him. A little later his brother arrived from London, with whom he conversed cheerfully for a few minutes. He was then left to settle for the night. But soon he grew worse; and the servant summoned the family to his room. lie was no longer able to recognize them. The last struggle was short; and before eleven oclock his spirit had departed.i We have thought it right to bring Mr. Carlyles Life of John Sterling hefore our readers, not from the intriiisic interest which it possesses as a biography, but in order to protest against this sideway attempt to preach a gospel which is any- thing but good news to those who hear it. If Mr. Carlyle, instead of indulging in loose assertion and overhearing bluster, would take the trouble to sit down and tell us fairly what he thinks about Christianity, we should feel personally much indebted to him, though we doubt whether the world at large would be benefited by the exposi- tion. It would then be time to discuss his whole theory. But so long as he is resolved to do no more than skirmish about the subject, it is impos- sible that we should ourselves do more than attack him in detail. The book appears to us a failure, for the author has not succeeded in giving a view of his subject other than that which had been pre- viously given. All that he has done is to find for himself easy opportunities of indulging in his own peculiar vein, and to rehearse some passages in Sterlings life and correspondence which, per- haps, had better have been buried in his grave. We trust that the harm which the book may do will be confined to the memory of its subject. But we feel that we should not be doing justice to our readers did we not point out to them the inhe- rent vanity, prejudice, and bad taste, which charac- terize this whole affair. Mr. Carlyle cannot suc- ceed in writing what is dull ; but there are, or ought to be, other considerations in the mind of a biographer besides those which appear to have been uppermost in the present publication. From the Spectator. GUTZLAFF S LIFE OF TAOU-KWANG.t FEW Europeans bad better opportunities to give an account of the Chinese than the late Mr. Gntzlaff~ fur he had lived among them many years, and niixed with all classes of society. His voyages along the coast of China, poblished some eighteen years ago, not only made him acquainted with the people of many places, but familiarized him with the physical and moral discomforts of a clumsy trading junk. A long experience as a missionary gave him an insight ~ The sister mentioned in this extract was, we be- lieve, Mrs. Maurice, properly speakin~, a sister of Mrs. Sterling, not of his own. She, too, is gone, leaving no reminiscences hut endearing ones, in the hearts of those by whom she was known while living. t The Life of Taou-kwang, late Emperor of China; with Memoirs of the Court of Pekin including a sketch of the principal Events in the History of the Chinese Em- pire during the last Fifty Years. By the late Reverend Charles Gutzlatl, Author of the History of China, and China Opened, & c. Published by Smith and Elder. into the characters, manners, and literature of the Chinese ; his official employment during the ~var introduced him to the highest rank of mandarins. Perhaps no Jesuit in the palmy days of their mis- sions had ever seen more of the Celestials, or under more varied and interesting circumstances; for the empire appears evidently verging towards dissolu- tion. Mr. Gutzlaffs mind, unluckily, was not well adapted to make the most of his opportunities. With much moral singleness of purpose, his intel- lectual simplicity degenerated into baldness ; if his logic was not defective it was disjointed, so that though his conclusions might be sound they do not always contain the reasons. Illiterate he certainly was not, yet he had the style and manner of an illiterate person. He was an old chronicler minus the quaintness. The Life of Faou-kwang, late Emperor of China, is rather a favorable specimen of Mr. Gutzlaffs pen. Whenever he has to take a comprehensive grasp of imperial affairs, or to exhibit an historical narra- tive on a large scale, his weakness of mind is visi- ble. But his sketches of personal character, or anecdotes and traits of individuals, are clear enough. He contrives to present a good idea of the court of Pekin, and the power of the emperor for personal tyranny ; his utter helplessness for any general purpose of good, let his wishes be what they may. His narrative, bald as it is, impresses very clearly the disorganized state of the empire, arid that it holds together rather from the habit of cohesion, or the absence of an enemy, than from any vital spirit. The late Emperor Taou-kwang was a remarkable man. His father, Keaking, ~vas a violent and licentious tyrant, who surrounded himself with deb- auchees and buffoons, and made short work of any suspected conspirator. The prince had no taste fur the orgies of the court, and absented himself as much as he could. When present, a regard for his own safety increased his natural coldness and reserve it was impossible to discover from his de- meanor whether he approved or disapproved. Ott ascending the throne, at the age of forty, his char- acter was an eiiigma ; but he came out well, dis- playing clemency, magnanimity, and many personal virtues. He published a general amnesty ; he restored his own relations to their rank, whom his father had imprisoned ; he banished all the com- panions and instrunients of the late emperors de- baucheries; he introduced order and simplicity into the courtwhich Mr. Gutzlaff ascribes, and perhaps truly, to his parsimony. His biographer speaks slightingly of his abilities as a ruler ; but the facts hardly warrant stich disparaging censures. Taou-kwang was not an imperial genius, nor did lie restore vitality to the empire ; which, indeed, had he been a genius, he would have failed to do. Powerful as the Chinese emperor may be, he is a slave to the Celestial etiquette and customs. His orders can only be carried into executi(mn by a bureaucracy, more extensive, more organized, and more powerful, than that of Imperial Rome or modern Austria. He probably increased the cor- rmmpth~n of the official class by the sale of offices an abuse to which Louis the Fourteenth was com- pelled to have recourse under a similar financial pressure; and, acting upon traditional do& mas and uniformly false information, he exposed the weak- ness of the empire by his war with England. As soon as the truth reached him, he saw the impolicy of which he had been guilty, and did his best to 6 CHALMERS LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 7 repair his fault by retracing his steps and supporting throughout the whole war; as the state could not the peace party. The manner in which he met the afford to lose another sixty millions in a similar en- national and war faction at court argues a dry humor terprise. as well as a sound judgment. This speech had an extraordinary effect ; every one present was struck dumb. Taou-kwang requested Some of the ministers, in whom the desire for war his servants to come on the morrow, and give a was not yet stifled, and who spoke openly of K decisive reply. But of this nssembly every one was ns a traitor to his country, were highly exasperate silent and grave. The emperor asked the first, who on perceiving the altered fortunes of the favorite now had so violently advocated war, whether he was in the ascendant. They watched their opportunity; ready to form the army, procure the means for its and when it was proclaimed that the British forces had maintenance, and lead forth the troops to victory? left, and that the Canton populace had manfully A very polite excuse, expressing total inability to undertake such a task, was the answer. The second withstood the barbarians, and were even ready to pleaded total ignorance of naval matters, having fight over again the battles of the great emperor and never even seen the sea; the third most enipliatically restore the fortune of the army, they began to murmur declared, that he had not money sufficient for his own at the peace. They held a consultation, at which it was resolved wants, and still less for such vast enterprises ; every one advanced some obstacle or other ; and amidst alt to declare the treaty null and void, to denounce Key- the courtiers, not one was ready to lay down his life ing as a traitor and Elepoo as his abettor, and to proclaim the renewal of the struggle and the utter and property on the altar of the country. defeat of the barbarians necessary to save the honor of the country. Everybody who considered himself The original documents quoted are few in number, a patriot, and to whom the ascendency of the Celestial and brief, as being extracts ; so that the book is Empire was dear, joined in the outcry ; and the deficient in the true Celestial aciness. It pos- subject was duly laid before Taou-kwang in a con- sesses, ho~iever, a good deal of Chinese manner in ference. the matter, and will repay perusal by those who lie was sickeiied of the war, as every man of intelli- wish to get an idea of the court of Pekin and the gence was ; and to recommence the course which he had just now abandoned was repugnant to him ; he, present condition of the empire of China. therefore, resolved to quiet this sanguinary spirit for _____________________________ ever. Having praised the patriotic sentiments of his servants and fully approved of them, he observed, Faoai the Messrs. Harper we have the first of four that so weighty a matter required mature considera- volumes containing Mr. Robert Chambers edition of tion, and begged them, therefore, to appear before him the Lfe and TT/orics of Burns. Mr. Chambers, on the following day. one of the well-known publishers of the EdinburgA~ It was a very august assembly; nobles and man- Journal, would appear to have undertaken a super- darins of the most influential party all attended. erogatory labor in adding another to the many biog- Taou-kwang asked whether they were still resolved raphies of the poet. Currie and Walker, Cunningham upon war? and their answer was, To the entire and Lockhart, are but few of a host of those who have extermination of the English race. Whereupon the felt called upon to illustrate the life of the Ayrshire emperor gave his full assent, agreed to recall Keying, bard; and, one would iuppose, the two latter names to punish Elepoo and all the friends of peace severely, might deter any new adventurer from approaching it. and to r& stablish the deadly enemies of the Barba- Prof. Wilson, however, in his eloquent chapters on rians in their full power. the Genius of Burns, proved that much was still left Every one was delighted with the prospect, and to be said and done in the premises. The biographers, rejoiced in aiiticipation, at the entire overthrow of the one and all, had exhibited unpardonable carelessness cowardly statesmen who had betrayed the birthright in their reception of unauthentic statements prejudi of the Celestial Empire, by acknowledging another cial to the poets reputation. Events of his life, and potentate as the comi~eer of the Son of Heaven, traits of his character, that might have been eluci- The sovereign, perceiving the general sensation of dated, were left in darkness, and that darkness re- joy, continued to harangue his counsellors. You mained as deeded spots upon his reputation. The know, he observed, that all our armies sent path which Christopher North pointed out, Mr. against the hated race have been beaten ; that the Chanibers has followed. He. has travelled, as Scott navy has ceased to exist; that not one general has did when in pursuit of ballads and legends, into every preyed successful, but that all are degraded, or sea- haunt and- abiding-place of the poet; picked up all tenced to severe punishment. It need not be told you the traditional reminiscences afloat among the gentry that the treasury is exhausted, and that we have and peasantry of Ayrshire ; conversed with the nothing to replenish it, as the sources of revenue in youngest sister of Burns, who is still living; and, in all the provinces visited by this dreadful scourge have short, exhausted all possible sources of information. been dried up. To this a general assent was given. The results have been arranged and treated with Still, he added, you are for the resumption of creditable discrimination. One feature, in particular, the war ; and I applaud your zeal in behalf of the is of the highest value ; and that is the recognition honor of my person. To accomplish this an army is of the poems as an essential part of the life of Burns, necessary, and one much stronger and better-ap- and the consequent interweaving of them into the pointed than any of the former ones. I, therefo~e, otherwise dry and unihiumined text of biography. commission you (pointiu~ to some of the most They do much to illustrate matters which have hith clamorous ministers) to raise this army, to drill erto been unnecessarily obscure. For every reason3 the men, and to place yourselves at the head. If you therefore, the present is likely to supersede other fail to exterminate the Barbarians as you propose, editiosis of the poet. Its completeness, mode of ar- - you will have to undergo capital punishment instant- rangement, and convenience of size, will be the best ly. Then, turning towards others, he remarked of recommendations..M Y. Times. that the navy no longer existed, and that a new one, more powerful, and better adapted to cope with the Barbarians than the former, ought to be created with this honorable enterpris6 he charged them. Finally, AnvicE GRArss.We beg to su0gest to the friends he requested that the rich individuals present should of the boa~constrictor, that if the poor creature, since~ not only furnish the money for these undertakings in swallowing the blanket, suffers much pain, a counter-~~ the first instance, but likewise bear the expenditure pane might be tried as a remedy.Punch. B FOREIGN REFUGEES. From the Times, Feb. 9. that this opinion is shared both by the Parliament and FOREIGN REFUGEES IN ENGLAND. the public of this country. With reference to the intimation that exceptional THE following circular despatch from Earl measures of precaution may be taken against Britiak Granville to her majestys ministers at Vienna and subjects travelling abroad, her majestys govern- St. Petersburgh, and her majestys charg~s ment cannot complain if, while insurrection is raging, daffaires at Paris and Frankfort, has just been or its flame is scarcely extinguished, foreign govern- presented, with other papers on the same subject, ments should take precautions against suspected Eng to both houses of Parliament. lish travellers. Her majestys government adhere to the principle Foreign-office, Jan. 13. laid down by Viscount Palmerston in his note of the Mv LORD (Snt)Representations have been made 30th of September, 1848, to the United States envoy at to her majestys government on the part of several this court, in relation to certain citizens of the United European governments, through their representatives States, who had come direct thence to Ireland, then in at this court, on the subject of the proceedings of a state of partial insurrection. foreign refugees now residing in England; and it has Lord Palmerston did not in that note ask for any been urgently demanded that immediate and effective change in the American laws, and he expressly fot- steps should be taken by her majestys government to bore to press the President of the United States with put a stop to those intrigues and conspiracies against representations against the offenders, but merely said the governments of various European powers in which that those who visited a country in a state of insurrec- foreign refugees now in Enolan gaged. ~ d are asserted to be en- tion must take their chance like persons whom curi- osity might lead into a field of battle ; and that the By the existing law of Great Britain all foreigners American government must not take it amiss if citi- have the unrestricted right of entrance and residence zens of the United States who visited Ireland at that in this country ; tnd, while they remain in it, are, time were involved in the consequences of measures equally with British subjects, under the protection of aimed at men of a different description. The meas the law ; nor can they be punished except for an of- ures, however, to which he alluded were taken with fence against the law, and under the sentence of the reference only to persons to whom, sunder the peculiar ordinary tribunals of justice, after a public trial, and circumstances of the moment, suspicion attached. on a conviction founded on evidence given in open But it would be in the highest degree unjust and un- court. No foreigners, as such, can be sent out of this worthy of the enlightened character of any European country by the executive government, except persons government, and wholly unwarranted by the course removed by virtue of treaties with other states, con- pursued by the British government on that occasion, firmed by act of Parliament, for the mutual surrender to put vexatious impediments in the way of unoffend- of criminal offenders. ing English travellers, by way of retaliation for the British subjects, however, or the subjects of any acts of foreign refugees in England. other state residing in this country, and therefore While, however, her majestys government cannot owing obedience to its laws, may, on conviction of consent, at the request of foreign governments, to hem0 concerned in levying war against the govern- propose a change in the laws of England, they would nient of any state at amity with Great Britain, be not only regret, but would highly condemn, any at- punished by fine and imprisonment. Offenders in this tempts on the part of foreign refugees in England to rospect are equally open to prosecution by individuals excite insurrection against the governments of their or by the government, respective countries. Such conduct would be con- Measures in the form of alien acts have been at dif- sidered by her majestys government ns a flagrant ferent times resorted to by the British legislature, by breach of the hospitality which those persons enjoy. which the power of expelling foreigners, in case of The attention of her majesty government will con- necessity, has been conferred on the executive govern- tinue to be directed to the proceedings of suspected ment; but such powers, even when asked for only for foreign refugees in this country, and they will en- the maintenance of internal tranquillity, have been re- deavor by every legal means to prevent them from garded by the people of this country with jealousy, abusing the hospitality, so libertilly accorded to them The general hospitality thus extended by our insti- by the British laws, to the prejudice of countries and tutions to all who choose to come to England has from governments in amity and alliance with Great time to time been the means of affording a secure asy- Britain. lum to political refugees of. 11 parties, many of them You will communicate a copy of this despatch to the illustrious in rank and position. Among them may be secretary of state. mentioned kings and princes of the two branches of I am, & c., the Bourbon family and the prime ministers of France GRANVILLI5. and Austria. It is obvious that this hospitality could not be ~ From the Times, 9th Feb. freely given if it were not so widely extended. If a dis- When Lord Granville took the seals of the cretionary power of removing foreigners were vested in foreign-office in December last, one question of con- the crown, appeals would be constantly made by the siderable delicacy and importance was pending be- dominant party in foreign countries for the expulsion tween her majestys government and the four lead- of their political opponents who might have taken ing states of the continent. As early as the 29th refuge in Great Britain. Monarchical governments October the French ambassador had addressed a mi0ht object to republican refugees, and republican diplomatic note to Lord Palmerston, enclosing governments might object to royalist refugees; and it what he termed evidence of a permanent state of would be difficult to defend such hospitality, which conspiracy against all the governments of Europe, would then be founded upon favor, and not upon equal laws. anutn at of France in particular, among the or- It is~the earnest wish of her majestys government ganized revolutionary committees of the political to pro te as far as in their power the peace, order, refugees in London, and calling upon the British and prosperity of every country with which they are government to put an end to the open aggressions in friendiy liance; but they do not think that any of these conspirators. This evidence consisted of groundexists which would justify them, on the present a French police report, referring to a number o~ occasion, in applying to the legislature for any extraor- absurd publications and incei~diary schemes, said to dinary or ~further powers itt reference to foreigners have originated with Mazzini, Ledru-Rolhin, and resident in England, and they have no reason to dbubt I other fugitives under the protection of the laws of FOREIGN REFUGEES. England. On the 9th of December, and conseqtrent- ly very shortly after Lord Palmerstons interview with the Finsbury and Jslington deputations, which had stimulated the hopes of the foreign refugees in London, a more formal application was made to the secretary for foreign affairs by the envoys of Austria, Prussia, and Russia. These powers alleged that they were under the necessity of again calling the serious attention of her majestys government to the enormous abuse which the political refugees in England make of the hospitality generously afibrded them ; and though they disclaimed any intention to dispute the right of England to exercise hospitality within the limits of international law, they reprpbated the disposition to cover with this pretext attempts again st the internal tranquillity of friendly govern- ments. It is obvious that the language held by Lord Palmerston at home, and the excessive suspi- cions entertained of his policy abroad, had aggra- vated these remonstrances ; for, in addition to the positive evil of which neighboring powers had some reason to complain, it was commonly believed by them that Lord Palmerston habitually employed and secretly encouraged these foreign refugees to gratify his own aversion and resentment against governments with which he was nominally on friendly terms. On the oilier hand, the demand thus made, in laiiguage of considerable severity, and with an implied menace acrain lers broad, was probably stEnglish travel- anim(isity of courts dictated as much by the their dread these to Lord Palmerston as by of the refugees. For, we may here observe, that no sooner was it known at Berlin that a change had taken place in the office of secretary of state for foreign affairs, than Chevalier Bunsen was instantly directed by telegraph to drop the rep- resentations of the Prussian government on this subject, as a proof of the earnest desire of the cab- inet of Berlin to establish the best relations with this country. This significant fact demonstrates that the previous tone of the continental powers was in great measure the result of the encourage- ment Lord Palmerston had been su their bitterest enemies. pposed to give to But the shaft thus directed against the late foreign minister was feathered from his own wing. In the autumn of 1848, during th~ disturbances in Ireland, Lord Palmerston had himself addressed a very strong remonstrance to Mr. Bancroft, then en- voy from the United States in London, on the sub- ject of proceedings of the most hostile character towards the British government which had then recently taken place in the United States. He complained that not only had private associations been formed, but public meetings held, for the avowed purpose of encouraging, assisting, and organ- izing rebellion in Ireland ; and he denounced with just indignation the acts of these conspirators in the United States against the peace of a country in friendly relations with their own government. He added that as the powers of the president were very limited to check and discouiitenance such pro- ceedings, the Americans must not take it amiss that her majestys government should resort to measures of precaution and of repression in regard to persons, whatever their nationality might be, who in this posture of affairs should come from the United States to this realm. This despatch, which had been published in the sess~onaI papers of Congress, rendered the task of the foreign plenipotentiaries an easy one, for th~y had only to request that Lord Palmerston would 9 apply his own principles to the persons in London who are employed in encouraging, assisting, and organizing rebellion in Hungary, Italy, Germany, and France; and the threat they held out agaimist English travellers on the continent was not stronger than Lord Palmerstons intimation that Americans found in Ireland, in 1848, must not take it amiss if they were arrested, as in fact some of them were, under the extraordinary powers then conferred upon the lord-lieutenant. A few days after the receipt of these communi- cations Lord Palmerston vacated office and Lord Granville succeeded him; so that the very first discussion in which the new foreign secretary was engaged had originated in the mistrust and resent- rnent it had been the misfortune of his predecessor to excite throughout Europe. We have already remarked that upon the nomination of Lord Gran- ville the Prussian note was instantly abandoned. To the other notes, of France, Austria, Russia, and the Germanic diet, and to a subsequent remon- strance from the King of the Two Sicilies, Lord Granville made an able and dignified reply, which will be found in another part of our columns. He pointed omit, in the first place, that foreigners have an unrestricted right of entrance and residence in this country, but that they are bound to obey the laws which protect them; and every person, whether British or foreign, is amenable to justice for being concerned in levying war against the government of a state at amity with Great Britain. So far foreign governments can as easily prosecute such offenders as the Crown of England itself. He then defends the ancient and universal practice of hos- pitality extended by England to all classes of polit- ical fugitives, not to democrats and revolutionists only, but to princes, prime ministers, and kings; and contends that measures taken against suspected persons in the midst of an insurrection would by no means justify vexatious impediments to English travellers by way of retaliation for the acts of fiureign refugees in England. In conclusion, Lord Granville declares that her majestys government not only regrets, but highly condemns, any attempt on the part of refmigees in England to excite insur- rection against the governments of their respective countries; and that such conduct would be retarded as a flagrant breach of hospitality. All legal means will therefore be taken to prevent it. To this cir- cular despatch a conciliatory answer has since been received from most of the courts to which it was addressed ; and we hope the affair may now be con- sidered to be terminated. When a country proclaims, as ~ve have done for ages, an unrestricted liberty of refuge and residence to foreigners, it necessarily follows that this asylum is used antI occasionally abused by large numbers of worthless and mischievous persons, and we prob- ably suffer more by their presence than those states against which they direct their hostility. English credulity us imposed upon by their ha- ran ues, and English munificence is taxed for their sustenance ; in returim for which they decry our in- stitutions, vilify our character, and endeavor to embroil us with the rest of the world. Nobody can be insensible to these evils; hut in the deliber- ate judgment of the people of England these evils are more than compensated by the great principle of freedom under which they occur. To what, after all, do we owe the presence of this large class of political refugees in England? Chiefly to the acts of the very powers and governments which now complain of their presence here. They are here 10 MORMONS. because they are expelled from every other part of Europe, and especially from their own homes. Within the last few weeks the list of fugitives from political persecution has been augmented hy a list of proscription containing many of the first hames in the civil and military annals of France. It is by the direct act of the president of the French re- public, not by our invitation or by their own choice, that these refugees are living among us ; and we are at a loss to understand how governments which have just banished their political adversaries to a land where all control over their persons and opin- ions must cease, can address themselves to this country, as if we were to aid them in the work of persecution. We trust the political refugees of all shades of opinion, to whom this correspondence may now be known, will conform, as it is their duty to do, to the principles and the laws of the country whose hospitality and protection they accept. They are indiscriminately received; they enjoy, without exception, all the personal liberties of Englishmen but it would be a base and unworthy return for this hearty and unsuspicious welcome to infect this island with the noisome conspiracies of revolutionary factions, or to pursue, beneath the shelter of our laws, the visionary objects of fallen dynasties, gen- erals, and statesmen. Louis Napoleon was the first person who in our time abused this hospitality by an attempt to invade a friendly neighboring state; but we trust that no such precedent will be copied by those who are now exiled by his fears or his resentment. From the Morning Chronicle, 28th Jan. MORMONS. THE writers and speakersno longer assuming to be merely speculative, but claiming to be emi- nently practicalwho attribute all animosity be- tween communities to the ineffaceable distinctions of race, are nowhere more strikingly confuted than in the relations between the great divisions of the United States. The American republic assimilates differences of blood by a process so rapid that the narrowest scrutiny can scarcely detect any o~me of its stages beyond the beginning and the end ; but, on the other hand, it comprises two populations which, as far as habits, sentiments, and political leanings can make them, are two self-contained nationalities, and of these the diversity is entirely referable to an institution artificial in its character, removable by positive law, and introduced within a period so recent as to be distinctly cognizable by history. The bondage of the negroes makes two nations of North and South ; circumstances equally fortuitous, though not equally homogeneous, are setting up an impregnable barrier of manners between East and West; and now one of the deepest and most hope- less incompatibilities of which people living under the same sky are capable seems to have been created by a creed not too old for the youngest of us to remember its origin iii tile self-convicting impos- tures of a profligate vagabond. The early success, the subsequent sufferings, and the eventual exodus of the Mormons, were ffrst laid before the English reader, in a consecutive narrative, by one of the special correspondents of The Morning Chronicle. His account left them settled on the borders of the Great Salt Lake, under the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, governed by their own hierarchy, practising the rites of their faith and the peculiar social institutions which it sanctions, recruited in numbers by plentiful accessions from the Eastern States and from England, turning the wilderness into a garden by assiduous culture, and affecting a lofty disdain for the gold of California, which they were the first to detect among the glittering sands of their water-courses. Since then, we have heard of them, at intervals, as claimants for a place with- in the broad pale of the republican government, and as recipients of the provisional organization which they had demanded. And now at lastfour years from the break in their historythey redppear, in the report of the United States judges to the presi- dent of the republic, as indulging in the license of oriental manners under the la~vs of arm Anglo-Saxon democracy, as utterly alienated in feeling from the American government, obedient to a rule of conduct completely inconsistent with its principle, pillaging its public funds, outraging its officers, and cursing the memory of its immortal founder. There is no reason to doubt that when the Mor- mons fled from the banks of the Mississippi to their present settlements, they believed themselves, after the type which they keep constantly in view, to have escaped forever into the wilderness from a more than Egyptian pppression. When they after- wares solicited admittance intt) the Union, there was no want of compla~ent remark, on the other side of the Atlantic, that native-born Americans, however perverted by creed, could never be debased into resigning their natural pride in the citizenship of the great republic, or their claim to the other privileges which it confers. Whatever mioht be the force of these motives among the rank and file of the Saints, it may be taken for granted that the chiefs of their hierarchy, never deficient in capacity or penetration, had discovered that a posi- tion of independence, in the territory which they occupied, had become untenable. They had been gradually enveloped on all sides. The riches of California, which the Mormons were long careful to conceal, had peopled the Pacific seaboard with thousands of the most active and encroaching spirits amon,, the population from which they had fled. The cessions of Mexico had flanked them on the south with the puss ~ssions of the republic. Their own settlements were fast becoming a regular sta- tion on the overland route to the gold mines, and they must have known that, wherever such a road was once struck, it was sure to fix the direction of permanent emi ration from the Western States. It was impossible but that a host of strangers should soon invade their borders, laying claim to all the privileges of the Saints, but disloyal to their government and disdainful of their faith. It was probably on a consideration of all these dangers that Brigham Young and his collea~ues determined to apply to Congress for a law to consti- tute the settlement a territory or provisional state. Still distant and still little cared for, they might hope to get the organization of the new dependency entrusted to the members of the Mormon Church, and thus the very instruments, from which they feared so much, might be turned against the in- truders whom they were expecting. The scheme seems to have so far succeeded that Brigham Young, the person invested by his church with the prophetic office, was named governor or executive head of the Territory; but, unfortunately for the Mormons though fortunately, perhaps, for the eventual civilization of the vast tracts of country at the east- ern base of the Rocky Mountainsthe supreme court of the United States, whose ftunctions always follow and control those of executive authority, A STUDY FOR THE MILLION. From the Norfolk Newg. despatched judicial officers to Utah who had no Indian war. Suppose them even dislodged from original connection with it whatever. The report Utah. The annexations from Mexico have trans- of these gentlemen, drawn up on their retirement ferred almost the whole of the unsettled countries from the territory in disgust, is a singular record to the allegiance of the United States, and the of mortifications heaped on themselves, and of gross removal of the Mormons would therefore only post- insults offered to the powers which they represented. pone the problem which is offered hy their extraor- It is difficult to see how the central government, dinary social organization. The matter is des- consistently with its dignity, can avoid inflicting tined to cause the American government much condign punishment on the Mormons. They ap- serious, though unprofitably hestowed, perplexity. propriated to the purposes of their church a fund ___________________________ which Congress had voted for the erection of public buildings. They arrested an official who was charged with the conveyance of publ~ moneys, in the avowed design of confiscating them. They contemptuously refused to pot in execution the en- actments of Congress fundamentally applicable to the new territory. They selected the most puhlic and solemn ceremonies as occasions for putting slights upon the judges. They openly disowned the United States government, and execrated the name of George Washington. The apparently gratuitous folly of these proceedings, which seems hardly reconcilable with the known acuteness of the Mormon chiefs, is no doubt to he explained hy their conviction, that it was better to brave the vengeance of the republic than to let their author- ity be impaired by the least deference to its officers or its behests. Much, too, of the violent language employed is only characteristic of the strata of Anglo- Saxon society from which the hulk of the Mormons has been taken. There are, however, many reflec- tions suggested by the report which are not so easily disposed of. How is this strange people to he dealt with 1 That they can ever be amalgamated or live in peace with the. Gentile communities which will shortly he rising on all sides of them, no one can suppose for a moment who has thought on the nature and tendencies of a society which is based on polygamy. Indeed, if natural repulsion could be subdued, the very friendliness which would follow, coupled with the latitude allowed to individual action by the American institutions, would make the example of such a society a peril of signal imminency and magnitude. It is fortunate, therefore, that the antipathies between the Mormons and their neigh- hors must prove unconquerable, and must multiply with each succeeding generation. Insurmountable political differences will shortly be added to them. Is it to be imagined that the citizens of California or of New York will ever allow their free vote to he controlled by the verdict of a community which, however sincere itself, must always be despotically governed by an ambitious impostor I Between their polygamy, their fanaticism, and their depend- ence on a divinely-accredited chief, the Mormons exhibit some singular resemblance to the Mahome- dan races; and we know, from experience, that political relations between Mahomedans and Chris- tians have ever proved impossible, except on the terms of absolute subjection on one side or the other. What, then, is to be done with the Saints 2 their church to be violently dissolved, and their cus- tonis prohibited I Hitherto they have only gained strength, cohesion, and confidence under persecu- tion. Are they to be conquered and expelled While they were yet a feeble folk, the Mormons stood a regular siege at Nauvoo; and, since then, their numbers have decupled, and a campaign against them, in their own deserts, might chance to prove as bloody, dangerous, and costly as the con- ilict with Mexico; while it would certainly be as ~agXorious, and probably as long protracted, as an A STUDY FOR THE MILLION. WE announced last week the death of Johnson Jex, the learned blacksmith of Letheringsett. He was the son of William Jex, a blacksmith, and was born at Billingford, in this county, in or about the year 1778. In his boyhood he was sent to a day school, but he has often been heard to say that although he was sent off to school for years, he never went three months in his life. He frequently walked to Foulsham instead, to look in at the shop-window of Mr. Mayes, a watchmaker, who resided there. He did not learn to read or write at school, hut taught himself afterwards. His mechanical talent manifested itself at a very early age. With remeard to Jexs first experiment in clock-work, the follow- ing anecdote is related. When about twelve or thirteen years of age, a watchmaker went to his mothers house to clean her clock. Jex watched him while he took it in pieces, cleaned the works, and put them together again. No sooner had he left than the boy determined to try whether he could not do the same. lie at once went to work, and completed his task with all the skill and ex- actitude of an experienced hand. (He did not mention this occurrence till several years after- wards.) From that time he began to turn his attention to watch and clock making, and eventually attained great excellence in the art. When about thirteen years old he became acquainted with Mr. Mayes, of whom mention has alredy been made. Mr. Mayes attention was first attracted towards Jex by frequently observing him look in at his window. He at length asked him what he wanted. Jex replied, he wished to see that thingpoint- ing to a newly invented instrument for either clock or watch making. Mr. Mayes showed it him, but did not allow him to touch it. Jex declared he could make one like it, and he accordingly did so in about a month. Mr. Mayes was delighted with the talent and ingenuity displayed by the boy, and from that time took great pleasure in showing him anything connected with his busine.~s. At his death he left Jex a legacy of 501., as a proof of the high esteem he entertained for him. In early life Jex was by no means robust in health, and he afterwards declared his belief that working at the bout-hammer, at the blacksmiths anvil, had been the means of strengthening his constitution and saving his life. Some particulars of Jexs early history are given in Youngs General View of the Agriculture of the County of Norfolk. We subjoin the following extract, written about the year 1802. Under the head implements, I must not conclude without mentioning a person of most extraordinary mechanical talents. Mr. Jex, a young blacksmith at Billingford, at sixteen years of age, having heard that there was such a machine as a way-measurer, he reflected by what machinery the result could be produced, and set to work to con. trive one; the whole was his own invention. It 11 ALFRED AUGUSTUS FRY. was done, as might he expected, in a round-about way, a motion too accelerated, corrected by addi- tional wheels, but throughout the complicity such accurate calculations were the basis of his work, that when finished and tried it was perfectly correct without alteration. His inventive talents are un- questionable. He has made a machine fur cutting watch pinions, a depthening tool, a machine for cutting and finishing watch-wheel teeth, of his own invention, a clock-barrel and fusee engine, made without ever seeing anything of the kind. He made a clock, the teeth of the wheels cut with a hack saw, and the balance with a half round file. He has made an electrical machine, and a powerful horse-shoe magnet. Upon being shown by Mr. Munnings a common barrow-drill, the delivery by a notched cylinder, he invented and wrought an absolutely new delivery ; a brass cylinder, with holes, having movable plugs governed by springs which clear the holes or cups, throwing out the seed of any size with great accuracy; and, not liking the application of the springs on the outside of the cylinder, reversed the whole, and in a second, now making, placed them most ingeniously within it. Shortly after Youngs notice of him was written, Jex removed to Letheringsett, near Holt, where he worked as a common blacksmith till within the last thirty years. Since that time he has employed workmen in the practical part of his business, but he continued till his decease to live in the house adjoining the blacksmiths shop. The first watch ever constructed by Jex was made after he had settled at Letheringsett, for his friend the Rev. T. Munnings, of Gorget, near Dereham. Every part of this watch, including the silver face, and every tool employed in its construction, were of Jexs own making. One of the greatest efforts of Jexs in- ventive powers was the construction of a gold chro- nometer, with what is technically termed a de- tached escapement and compensating balance, which was made long before he ever saw or heard of the detached escapementthe principle of which has since been so successfully applied by Arnold and Earushaw. Jex turned the jewels himself, made the cases, the chain, the mainspring, and indeed every part of the watch, except the dial. The very instruments with which he executed this wonderful _____________________________ piece of mechanism were of his o~vn workman- ship. It is only by watchmakers themselves that ALFRED A. FRYThe Sun, in noticing the re- this triumph of skill can be adequately appreciated. cent decease of a very remarkable man, Alfred Augus- They know that no single man is ever employed to tus Fry, says make a complete chronometer, but that different His memory is to be regarded with respect for his parts of the mechanism are entrusted to different noble qualities as a citizen and a politic an. Al- hands, and that many are employed upon a sinole though he never assumed a place in public life, as watch. This watch is now in the possession one of the prominent notabilities of the day, he is of well known to a large circle of men who have been Mr. I3lakeley, of Norwich. Such was Jex s thirst used to the political movements of the last forty years, for information, and such was his resolution to clear as one of that band of intrepid and truly honest men away every obstacle which impeded his progress, who have contributed so effectually in their sphere to that, wishing to read some French works on Ho- produce the present enlightened and reforming state rology, he mastered, unassisted, the French Ian- of the public mind. To use the emphatic expression guage, when about sixty years of age! He then of the Lord Chancellor a few months ago, he was a read the books in question, but found that they con- reformer long before reform was fashionable ; and tamed nothing which was new to him, ha having we may add he was one of the men who did much,. become thoroughly acquainted with the subject by and at a great cost to himself, to make reform fash- previous study of English authors. Another of aonable. As he began in youth, so he continued J cx s inventions was a lathe of extraordinary power through a pre~minently energetic manhood, and so and ingenuity, which remained in his possession he remained at the close of a career, which, although until his death. By means of this lathe, he was he was approaching his term of threescore years and enabled to cut the teeth of wheels mathematically ten, we cannot but feel was too prematurely closed. His favorite maxim was that of the noble Roman correct into any number, even or odd, up to 2,000, poet Vitam impendere Feroand to that self- by means of a dividing plate. He also constructed sacrificing principle of action throughout his career a lathe on a minute scale for turning diamonds, he invariably, at every cost, adhered. Honored be which is very complicated in its structure. He his memory! He belonged to a race of earnest men likewise invented an air-tight furnace door for his own greenhouse, so constructed that the fire would keep lighted from Saturday night till Monday morning, thus obviating the necessity of attending to it on Sunday. About ten years ago he invented a method of opening green-house windows to any required width, and so fastened that the wind has no power over them. Jex was also an iron and brass founder, a glass-blower, a maker of mathe- matical instruments, barometers, thermometers, gun barrels, air guns, & c. Jex understood elec- tricity, galvanism, electro-magnetism, & c., and had a thorough tmnowledge of chemistry as far as the metals are concerned. Amongst other sciences, Jex understood astronomy, and could calculate the time by the fixed stars. In taking astronomical observations, he was accustomed to make use of his own door-posts and a chimney opposite. He made telescopes and metallic reflectors, which are universally acknowledged to be extremely difficult of construction. He was naturally a timid man, and excessively afraid of contagion; yet he lived in a state of filth which was almost sufficient of itself to generate disease: He never allowed a woman to enter his house for the sake of cleaning it, and his~ r rooms consequently contained the accumulated dust of years. His disposition was shy and retiring; but whenever he met with any one whose tastes were similar to his own, he would converse for hours with the greatest delight on any subject con- nected with the arts and sciences. He was a man of the strictest integrity, and of unimpeachable veracity. He was entirely destitute of the love of money, and sought out truthfor its own sake, and with no view to any personal gain. Such an example is rare indeed in this grasping and selfish age. He was kind in his manner to the poor, and rarely sent a mendicant away without relief. In 1845, Jex had a stroke of paralysis, from the effects of which he never entirely recovered. His intellect gradu- ally lost much of its original power, and the last year or two especially a very marked alteration was perceptible. He was again attacked with pa- ralysis in November lastand his death took place the 5th of January. His remains are interred in Letheriogsett churchyard. 12 MR. POWERS AND OLD HABITS.CATLIN S EXHIBITION. true political heroesdeep thinkers and energetic actors ; and we hold forth his example as a guide to the rising generation of politicians in the stirring time so distinctly at hand. This praise is very just. Mr. Fry was neither a public writer nor a public speaker, and yet he influ- enced the opinions of many men who have left their mark upon the times in which they lived. He was a commercial manoriginally a wholesale stationer subsequently an accountant, and lastly a partner in the eminent firm of De la Rue and Co.a busy man in his private affairs, but yet displaying an intense energy upon all public questions. His education had teen of a high order; his literary attainments were extensive and almost profound. He could readily turn from his newspaper to his Athennus, and pour out a flood of conversational eloquence upon Roman luxury or English freedom. When William Hone went through his three days of terrible contest with judicial predetermination to convict and punish, there was a tall man at his side, who ever and anon handed him a book, and whose eager deportment might have indicated that he was one of a small band who held that the battle was as much their affair as that of the poor bookseller. When the bar of the House of Lords was the scene of more impassioned eloquence than had perhaps ever been there heard beforefor the occasion was the trial of a queenthe same man was intently waiting upon the words of Brougham and Denman; and on one occasion a few Greek sentences were hastily jotted down by him, and, passing into the hands of one of these orators, were uttered with a force and solemnity which became the withering denunciation of antiquity thus suggested. Those were times when freedom of opinion was very danger- ous. The days of reform were at inind, and Alfred Fry worked in that struggle with a zeal which shrunk from no fatigue and asked for no rest. He had his reward in the improved state of law and of opinion, which has been the glory and safety of the last twenty years. The remembrance of his early contests then came gradually to be mellowed by a calm historical light. Public men and passing events were to have their characters and their real importance tested by a fixed standard of principle, and not by enthusiastic feelings. But there was one dominant idea for which he would have fought to the deaththat England should be essentially Protestant, if she would remain spiritually and intellectually free. MR. POWERS AND OLD HABITS. EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM AN AMERICAN RESIDING TEMPORARILY IN FLORENcE. Mv correspondent is engaged in putting up some fixtures, and thus describes some of the vexatious in- cidents of a dependence on the mechanics of that city. He says In America I might be saved all this loss of time but here, where the carpenters have nothing but a red-hot poker to bore deep holes with,, (not an auger in all Florence!) what can be expected from other mechanics? A part of my room is fitted up like a blacksmiths shop, where I hammer through my diffi- culties as best I may. But, you will ask, how do the Florentines get on? Why, they get on as their grand- fathers did. They work without tools; and take as much time to do a thing as a Yankee would require to do it twice or thrice over. What would you think to see a man sawing wood, holding the wood in both hands, and the saw frame between his knees, bobbing up and down orer it with the perspira- tion dripping from his nose? and yet this is the way that the sawyers all do here. Everything is in- side out, or the wrong end foremost, in this country. The gimblets are made to turn the reverse of ours axes are shaped like grubbing-hoes; and plows are made from a forked tree. Even the sculptors are incorrigible. Our celebrated fellow-citizen, Powers, has invented and constructed many ingenious tools and great improvements in that art; and, although all praise and admire, none will adopt them. For instance, Mr. Powers, to prevent his models drying in the intervals between work, or in the night-time, has an oil-cloth cylinder suspended over the work from a pulley. When this is drawn down, the air is effectually excluded, and there can be, of course, no evaporation. Well, the native altists have been to see it; but as it never had been done by Canova, they could not make up their minds to try it. They re- turned to their studios, and still adhere to the old method, which is to swathe the clay statue from head to feet with wet bandages of muslin. This soon rots, and soils the clay with slime ; and, besides, it rubs away the delicate modelling. It also requires considerable time to put it on and take it off, whereas, by Mr. P.s method, it is done in an instant. But Mr. Powers has gone even beyond all this, for he now models his statues without the use of clay at all. He has discovered a process by which he makes the plaster as impressible as clay, thus saving both expense and time. This is an immense improvement~ but, nevertheless, the old fogies shake their heads at it, as much as to say, Our grandfathers did nt do things in this manner. Before closing, I ought to tell you that Mr. P. is blocking out his America in a spotless piece of marble. It is of the natural size of America, if you can guess what that is; or about six feet one inch high. I wish Congress would order it made of colossal size, say ten or twelve feet high, and put it in the place of the ten- pin-player on the eastern portico of the Capitol. It is rather an oversight in the Great West to neglect their renowned fellow-citizen, whose genius was first excited on the banks of ice belle riviere. .TVationai Intelligencer. CATLINS ExMIBITIoN.Mr. Catlin has recently been exerting himself in the advocacy of a museum of mankind, to contain and perpetuate the familiar looks, the manufactures, history, and records of all the vanishing races of man. A report on thc sub- ject was lately read by him at one of our scientific societies ; and on Friday the 9th, he delivered an address on the subject at his American Indian Collec- tion. He opened by a general review of his past labors in the study of the native tribes of America, illustrated by a reference to some of the numerous records he has collected, and by the appearance of various natives themselves in full costume. Mr. Catlin then proceeded to enforce the comprehensive scheme which now occupies him. After pointing out the urgent necessity of at once engaging in the for- mation of a museum of the kind proposed by him, if it is to be gathered together at allfor the inroads of civilization are rapidly extirpating the native races of the worldhe went on to develop his plan in its practical details. He proposes: as the first step, the purchase and fitting up of a steamer as a floating museum, in which the sea-port towns of all countries should be visited ; considering that this mode of ex- hibition would possess great advantages through the facility of its visiting the chief cities of the world, stopping no longer in any than a lucrative excitement could be kept up ; and in the great immediate saving of time, as well as in other respects. Mr. Catlins present collection would form the basis of such a museum, and he undertakes all liabilities and risks. The lecturer expressed his determination to persist in his efforts until they shall have accomplished the object he has in view; an~d, in order to give further publicity to his plans, he announced a continuation of lectures and discussions on the subject every Thurs- day evening for the present. The remarkable energy Mr. Catlin has heretofore displayed may give us con- fidence in at least his unflinching perseverance. Spectator, 17th January. 13 THE TWO ISABELS. From Sharpes Magazine. THE TWO ISABELS. BY MRS. S. C. HALL. Oh love, love, love, love love is like a dizziness; It will not let a poor man go aoout his business. OLD SoNo. And are these follies going, And is my proud heart growing Too cold, or wise, for womans eyes Again to set it glowing Mooaz. THE general put on his spectacles, and looked steadfastly at Isabel for at least two minutes. Turn your head, he said, at last there to the left. Isabel Montford, ~dthough an acknowledged beauty, was as amiable as she was admired ; she had also a keen appreciation of character; and, though somewhat piqued, was amused by the oddity of her aunts old lover. The general was a fine example of the well-preserved person and manners of the past century ; beauty always recog- nizes beauty as a distinguished relative ; and Isabel turned her head, to render it as attractive as it could be. The general smiled, and, after gazing for another minute with evident pleasure, he said Do me the favor to keep that attitude, and walk across the room. Isabella did so with much dignity; she certainly was exceedingly handsome ;her step light, but firm; her figure admirably poised; her head well and gracefully placed; her features finely formed; her eyes and smile bright and confiding. She would have been more captivating had her dress been less studied ; her taste was evidently Parisien rather than classic. The gentleman mut- tered something, in which the words, charming, and to be regretted, only met her ear; then he spoke distinctly You solicited my candor, young ladyyou challenged comparison between you and your com- peers, and the passing belles whom I have seen. Now, be so kind as to walk out of the room, rednier, and curtsey. Had Isabel Montford been an uneducated young lady, she might have flounced out of the salon, in obedience to her displeasure, which was very decide~d; hut as it was, she drew herself to her full hei~ht, and swept through the folding-doors. The general took a very large pinch of snuff. That is so, perfectly a copy of her poor aunt! he murmured ; just so would she pass onward, like a ruffled swan she went after that exact fashion into the ante-room, when she refused me, for the fourth time, thirty-five years ago. The young Isabel redntered, and curtseyed. The gentleman seated himself, leaned his clasped hands upon the head of his beautifully inlaid cane which he carried rather for show than useand said, Young lady, you look a divinity! Your tourreeure is perfection ; but your curtsey is fright- ful! A dip, a bob, a bend, a shuffle, a slide, a canterneither dignified, graceful, nor self-pos- sessed! A curtsey is in grace what an adagio is in music ;only masters of the art can execute either the one or the other. Why, the beauty of the Duchess of Devonshire could not have saved her reputation as a graceful woman, if she had dared such a curtsey as that. I assure you, sir, remonstrated the offended Isabel, that Madame Micheau What do I care for the woman? exclaimed the general, indignantly. Have I not memory B Can you not teach me B said Isabel, amused and interested by his earnestness. I teach you !I! No; the curtseys which captivated thousands in my youth were more an in- spiration than an art. The very queen of ballet, in the present day, cannot curtsey. Could my aunt B inquired Isabel, a little saucily. Your aunt, Miss Montford, was grace itself. Ah! there are no such women now a-days ! And, after the not very flattering observation, the general moved to the piano. Isabels brows contracted, and her cheeks flushed; ho~vever, she glanced at the looking-glass, was comforted, and smiled. He raised the cover, placed the seat with the grave gallantry of an old courtier, and invited the young lady to play. She obeyed, to do her justice, with prompt politeness; she was not with- out hope that there, at least, the old gentleman would confess she was triumphant. Her white hands, gemmed with jewels, flew over the keys like winged seraphs; they be~vildered the eye by the rapidity of their movements. The instrument thundered, but the thunder ~vas so continuous that there was no echo! The contrast will come by- and-by, thought the disciple of the old school there must be some shadowto throw up the lights. Thundercrashthundercrashdrumrattle a confused, though eloquent, running backwards and forwards of sounds, the rings flashing like lightning! Another crashloudera great deal of crossing handsviolent strides from one end of the instrument to the otherprodigious displays of strength on the part of the fair performera terrific shake! What desperate exertion ! thought the general; and all to produce a soulless noise.~~ Then followed a fearful banditti of octavesanother crash, louder and more prolonged than the rest; and she looked up with a triumphant smilea smile conveying the same idea as the pause of an opera-dancer after a most wonderful pirouette. Do you keep a tuner in the house, my dear young lady B inquired the general. If a look could have annihilated, he would have crumbled into ashes ; but he only returned it with admiration, thinking How astonishingly like her aunt, when she refused me the second time ! And that is fashionable music, Miss Moutford? I have lived so long out of England, only hearing the music of Beethoven, and Mozart, and Mendels- sohn, I was not aware that noise was substituted for power, and that execution had banished expres- sion. Dear me !why, the piano is vibrating at this moment! Poor thing! How long does a piano last you Miss Montford B Isabel was losing her temper, when fortunately her auntstill Miss Verecame to the rescue. The lovers of thirty years past would have met anywhere else as strangers. The once rounded and queen-like form of the elder Isabel was shorn of its grace and beauty; of all her attributes, of all her attractions, dignity only remained; and it was that high-bred, innate dignity which can never be acquired, and is never forgotten. She had not lost the eighth of an inch of her height, and her gray hair was braided in full folds over her fair but wrinkled brow. Isabel Moutford looked so exactly what Isabel Vere had been, that General Gordon was sorely perplexed; Isabel Vere, if ~xuth must be told, had taken extra pains with her dress; her niece had met the general the night before, and her 14 THE TWO ISABELS. likeness to her aunt had so recalled the past, that his promised visit to his old sweetheart (as he still called her) had fluttered and agitated her more than she thought it possible an interview with any man could do; she quarrelled with her beautiful gray hair, she cast off her black velvet dress dis- dainfully, and put on a blue Moire antique. (She remembered how much the captainno, the GEN- ERAL, once admired blue.) She was not a coquette; even gray hair at fifty-five does not cure coquetry where it has existed in all its strength; but, for the sake of her dear niece, she wished to look as well as possible. She wondered why she had so often refused poor Gordon. She had been all her life of too delicate a mind to be a husband- hunter, too well satisfied with her position to cal- culate how it could be improved, and yet, she did not hesitate to confess to herself that now, in the commencement of old age, however verdant it might be, she would have been happier, of more consequence, of more value, as a married woman. She had too much good sense, and good taste, to belong to the class of discontented females, con- sisting of husbandless and childless women, who seek to establish laws at war with the laws of the Almighty ; so, if her heart did beat a little stiffly, and sundry passages passed through her brain in connexion with her old adorer, and what the future might beshe may be forgiven, and will be, by those not strong- minded women who understand enough of the waywardness of human nature to know that, if youn~ heads and old hearts are some- times found together, so areyoung hearts and old heads. The young laugh to scorn the idea of Cupid and a crutch, but Cupid has strange vagaries, and at any moment can barb his crutch with the point of an arrow. The old people, as Isabel Montford irrever- ently called them that evening, did not Cret on well together; they ~vere in a great degree disappointed one ~vith the other. They stood up to dance the minuet de la cour, and Isabel X~ere languished and swam as she had never done before ; but the gen- eral only wondered how stiff she had grown, and hoped that he was not as ill used by time as Mis- tress Isabel Vere had been. At first, Isabel Mont- ford thought it good fun to see the antiquities bowing and curtseying, but site became interested in the lingering courtliness of the little scene, trembled lest her aunt should appear ridiculous, and then wondered how she could have refused such a man as General Gordon must have been. Days and weeks flew fast; the general became a constant visitor in the square, and the heart of Isabel Vere had never beaten so loudly at twenty as it did at fifty-and-five; nothing, she thought, could be more natural than that the general should recall the days of his youth, and seek the friendship au(l companionship of her who had never married, while hefaithless man !had beep guilty of two wives during his services in India. It was im- possible to tell which of the ladies he treated with the most attention. Isabel Moutford took an espe- cial delight in tormenting him, and he was cynical enough towards her at times. Although he frankly abused her piano-forte playing, yet he evidently preferred it to the music Miss Vere practised so indefatigably to please him, or to the songs she sung, in a voice which, from a high soprano, had been crushed by time into what might be con- sidered a very singular mezzo. He somehow fcrgot Itow to find fault with Miss Mootfords dancing, and more than once became her partner in a quadrille. It was evident, that while the general w~ growing young, Miss Vere remained as she was ! Isabel Montford amused herself at his ex- pense, but he did notquick-sighted and man-of-the- world though he wasperceive it. At first he was remarkably fond of recalling and dating events, and dwelling upon the grace, and beauty, and interest, and advantage, of whatever ~vas past and gone much to the occasional pain of Isabel Vere, who, gentle-hearted as she was, would have consigned dates to the bottomless pit ; latterly, however, he talked a good deal more of the present than of the past, and, greatly to the annoyance of the younger men, fell into the duties of escort to both ladies accompanying them to places of public promenade and amusement. On such occasions, Miss Isabel Vere looked either earnest or bashfulyes, positively bashful; and Miss Isabel Moutford, brimfull of as much mischief as a lady could delight in. At times, the general laid aside his cynical observations, together with his cane, which was not even replaced by an umbrella; to confess the truth, he had experienced several symptoms of heart disease, which, though they made him restless and uncomfortable, brought hopes and aspirations of life, rather than fears of death. One mornin, Isabel Montford and the general were alone in the salon where this little scene first opened Our difference has never been settled yet, she exclaimed, gayly; you have never proved to me the superiority of the Old school over the New. Simply because of your superiority to both, he replied. I do not perceive the point of the answer, said the young lady. What has my superiority over both to do with the question ? The general arose, and shut the door. Do you think von could listen to me seriously for five mmnutes? he said. Listening is always serious work, she an- swered. He took her hand within his; she felt it was the hand of age; the bones and sinews pressed on her soft palm with an earnest pressure. Isabel Moutfordcould you love an old man? She raised her eyes to his, and wondered at the light which filled them Yes, she answered, I could love an old man dearly; I could confide to him the dearest secret of my heart. And your heart, your heart itself? Such things have been, sweet Isabel. His hand was very hard, but she did not withdraw hers. No, not that, becausebecause I have not my heart to give. She spoke rapidly, and with emotion. I have it not to give, and I have so longed to tell you my secret! You have such influ- ence with my aunt, you have been so affectionate, so like a father to me, that if you would only inter- cede with her, for HtM and me, I know she could not refuse. I have oftenoften thought of intreat- ing this, and now it was so kind ofirou to asic, if I could love an old man, giving me the opportunity ,of showing that I do, by confiding in you, and asking your intercession. The room became misty to the generals eyes, and the rattle of a battle-field sounded in his ears, and beat upon his heart. And pray, Miss Montford, he said, after a pause, who may him be? Ab, you do not know him !my aunt forbade 15 THE TWO ISABELS. the continuance of our acquaintance the day before I had the happiness to meet you. It was most fortunate I wood you to call upon her, thinking (she looked up at his fine face, whose very wrinkles were aristocratic, and smiled her most bewitching smile) thinking the presence of the only man she ever loved would soften her, and hoping that I should one day he privileged to address you as my friend, my uncle ! And she kissed his hand.It really was hard to hear. I have heard her say, per- sisted the young lady, that when prompted by evil counsel, she refused you, she loved you, and since your return, she only lives in your presence.~~ The, general wondered if this was true, and thought he wonld not give the young beauty a triumph. He was recovering his self-possession. I remem- bered your admiration of passing belles, and felt how kindly you tolerated me, for my aunts sake; and surely you will aid me irs a matter upon which my happiness and the happiness of that poor dear fellow depends B She bent her beautiful eyes on the ground. And who is the poor dear fellow B inquired the general, in a singularly husky voice. Henry Mandeville, half-whispered Isabel. Oh, is it not a beautiful name the initials on those lovely handkerchiefs you gave me will still do; I shall still he I. M. A son of old Admiral Mandevillesl The youngest son ; she sighed, th at is my aunts ohjection ; were he the eldest, she would have heen too happy. Oh, sir, he is such a fine fellowsuch a hero lost a leg at Cabool, and received I dont know how many stabs from those horrid Affgauns. Lost a leg B repeated the general, with an ap- proving glance at his own ; why, he can never dance with you. No, but lie can admire my dancing, and does not think my curtsey a dip, a shuffle, a bend, a bob, a slide, a canter! Ah! dear general, I was always perfection in his eyes. By the immortal duke, thought the general, the young divinity is laughing at me! arMy aunt only objects to his want of money; now I have abundance for both; and your recoin- mendation, dear sir, at the Horse Guards, would at once place him in some position of honor and of profit; and, even if it were abroad, I could leave my dear aunt with the consciousness that her happi- ness is secured by you, dear guardian angel that you are! Ah, sir! at your time of life you can have no idea nf our feelings. Oh yes, I have ! sighed the general. Bless you ! she exclaimed enthusiastically; I thought you would recall the days of your youth and feel for us ; and when you see my dear Henry With a cork leg Ay, or with two cork legsyou will, I know, he convinced that my happiness is as secure as your own. Women are riddles, one and all ! said the general, and I should have known that before. Oh! do not say such cruel things and disappoint me, depending as I have been on your kindness and affection. Hark ! she continued, I hear my aunts footstep; now dear, dear general, reason coolly with hermy very existence depends on it. If you only knew him! Promise, do promise, that you will use your influence, all-powerful as it is, to save my life. She raised her beautiful eyes, swimming in un- shed tears, to his; she called him her uncle, her dear noble-hearted friend ; she rested her snowy hand lovinglyimploringly, on his shoulder, and even murmured a hope that, her aunts consent once gained, it might not be impossible to have the two weddings on the same day. The general may have dreaded the banter of sundry members of the Senior United Service Club who had already jested much at his devo- tion to the two Isabels; he may have felt a gener- ous desire to make two young people happy, and his good sense doubtless suggested that sixty-five and twenty bear a strong affinity to January and May; he certainly did himself honor, by adopting the interests of a brave young officer as his own, and avoided the banter of the club by pledging his thrice-told vows to his old love, the same bright morning that his new love gave her heart and hand to Henry Mandeville. From the N. Y. Evening Post. VINETA. FROM THE GERMAN OF MULLER. Vineta is the name of a iake in the island of Ruegen, in the Baitic. Tradition says, that in ancient times there stood a city on this spot, which sunk, and the lake caine up in its stead; the chime of bells from the steeples is still often heard beneath the wate~s. FROM the lakes unfathomed waters ringing, Evening bells sound faintly through the air: Thus to mortals wondrous tidings bringing From the far old wondrous city there. Low it rests, with earth no more connected, Waters now its lonely ruins lave Still, from pinnacle and spire reflected, Golden sparks are mirrored in the wave. And the boatman who, with eye enchanted, Once hath seen the light, at sunset clear, Ever seeks the magic spot undaunted, Heeding not the rocks that threaten near. From the hearts unfathomed depths, a ringing Comes to me like faintly sounding bells; Ak, it cometh wondrous tidings bringing, Of the love once cherished there it tells. To those depths a beauteous world is given, Sunken there its ruins still remain; Still they shine, like golden sparks of heaven, In the mirror of my dream again. Then, beneath the waters disappearing, Would I sink in yon reflection fair, And, as if angelic voices hearing, Fain would seek the wondrous city there. A Buckeye libroad; or, Wanderings in Eserope and the Orient. By Samuel S. Cox. New York: G. P. Putnam. 1852. Here is a traveller from Ohio, who visited Europe in the year of the great exhibition, and, after a look at the Crystal Paiahe and its samples of the products of all the civilized countries of the globe, wandered through Europe, to Greece and its isles, and to Asiib Minor. The author had his eyes open wherever.he went, and though here and there an exception may be taken to his English, describes what he saw with liveliness and spirit, which is a more important quality than mere verbal neatness and accuracy. It is a pleasant book for the winter evenings, and not ill-suited for light summer reading. The work is illustrated by several neat engravings on wood, repre- senting remarkable places.A. Y. Evening Post. 16 NATHANIEL HAWThORNE. From the New Monthly Magazine. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. With a keen eye and overflowing heart He pours out truth in works by thou~htful love Inspiredworks potent over smiles and tears. WORDSWORTH. ALT11OU is an author of some years standing, and of considerable repute in his own country, Mr. Hawthorne has been, until quite recently, all but unknown among ourselves. Only a few practised litidrateurs recognized him, as a writer who could rifle Twice-told-Tales of their proverbial tedium, and could distil spirit and life from the Mosses of an Old Mans~. What would lately have been deemed an impossible quantity of his writings, is now circulated up and down these islands, wherever railways and shilling libraries are on the qui vice, lie is now fairly seated on the same eminence with Cooper and Washington Irving; and we trust that the sympathy with his singular but fascinating works, at length evoked among the old Britishers, will encourage him ,to strains in a yet hi,her moodfor he would seem to be one of those self-distrustful and diffident authors to whoni the inward witness of genius is naught, unless confirmed by the external evidence of third and fourth editions. Sooth to say, we know tif few living tale-tellers who even approach him in the art of investing with an appropriate halo of vision- ary awe those subjects which relate to the super- naturalthose legendary themes whose province is the dun borderland of fancy. His is the golden meaii between the Fee-faw-fum terrors of spectre- factors extraordinary, and that chill rationalism which protests there are not more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt ofpshaw, it never dreams !say, rather, seen and handled, weighed and analyzed to the minutest globulein its phi- losophy. He is far enough, on the one hand, from the red-and-blue-light catastrophes of Monk Lewis; and, on the other, he steers clear of the irony of scepticism, and narrates hi~ traditions with a grave simplicity and cordial interest, the character of which is, as it Thould be, highly contagious. Of this unfathomable world of ours he can say, I have watched Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps, And my heart ever gazes pa the depth Of thy deep mysteries :~ and he has pondered much on what Wordsworth calls That superior mystery Our vital frame, so fearfully devised, And the dread soul within. He throws deep and scrutinizing glances on those realities which cluster around mans heart of hearts. He loves to give way to dreamy yet serious speculationsto the wayward, undulating motion of thoughts that wander through eterolty. He is one of the subtlest of psychologists, while reporting the results of his study, without any affisetation of scholastic jargon. His still waters run deep; how clearly they reflect the human face divine of man, woman, and child, let those testify who frequent the green pastures through which they stray, and who have gazed idly or otherwise into the placid streamfinding therein, some at least, a ma~ ic mirror, from which they have departed in self-introspective mood, saying, We have seen stranDe things to-day ! ~ Shelley. ccccxl. LIVING AGE. VOL. xxxiii. 2 There can be little question that the most power- fulif also the least pleasingof Mr. Hawthornes fictions, is The Scarlet Letter, a work remark- able for pathos in, the tale, and art in the telling. Even those who are most inclined (and ~vith reason) to demur to the plot,, are constrained to own them- selves enthralled, and their profoundest sensibilities excited by The hook along whose burning leaves lils searlet weh our wild romancer weaves. The invention of the story is painful. Like the Adam Blair of Mr. Lockhart, it is a tale of trouble, and rebuke, and blasphemy ; the trouble of a guilty soul, the rebuke of public stiguta, and the occasioii thereby given to) the enemy to blas- pheme. For, of the two fallen and suffering creatures whose anguish is here traced out, little by little, and line upon line, with such harrowing fidelity, one, and the guiltiest of the twain, is, like Adam Blair, a venerated presbyter, a pillar of the faith; the very burden of remorse which crusheis his soul increases the effect of his ministrations, giving him sympathies so intimate with the sinful brotherhood of mankindkeeping him dowuu on a level with the lowesthim, the man of ethereal attributes, whose voice the angels might have listened to and answered ; and thus his heart vibrates in unison with that of the fallen, and receives their pain into itself, and sends its own throb of pain through a thousand other breasts, in gushes of sad, persuasive eloquence. It has been objected to works of this class that they attract more persons than they warn by their excitement. Others have replied What is the real moral of any tale? Is it not its permanent expressionthe last burning trace it leaves upon the soul? Arid who ever read Adam Blair we are citing the words of a critic of that book without rising from the perusal saddened, sol- emnized, smit with a profound horror at the sin which wrought such hasty havoc in a character so pure and a nature so noble? This effect produced, surely the tale has not been told in vain. How- ever this may be, ~ve find reviewers who moo4 the above objection to such fictions in general, avowing,. with ref~rence to the Scarlet Letter in partien- lar, that if sin and sorrow in their most fearful forms are to be presented in any work of art, they have rarely been treated with a loftier severity,, purity, and sympathy than here. What so many romancists would have turned into a fruitful hotbed of prurient description and adulterated sentiment,. is treated with consummate delicacy and moral restraint by Mr. Hawthorne. As Miss Mitford observes, With all the passionate truth that he has thrown into the long agony of the seducer, we never, in our pity for the sufferer, lose our abhor- reiice of the sin. How powerfully is depicted. the mental strife, so tumultuous and incessant in. its agitation, of the young clergyman, Arthur Dimmesdalewhom his congregation deem a mir- ache of holinessthe mouthpiece of Heavens mes- sages of wisdom, and rebuke, and lovethe very ground he treads being sanctified in their eyes. the maidens growing pale before himthe aged members of his flock, beholding his frame so feeble,, (for he is dying daily of that within which passeth show,) while they themselves are rugged in t~aeir decay, believe that he will go heavenward ~before them, and command their children to lay their old bones close to their young pastors holy grave; and all this time, perchance, when lie is thinkingof his. 17 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. grave, he questions with himself whether the grass will ever grow on it, because an accursed thing must there bc buried. Irresistibly affecting is the climax, when he stands in the pulpit preaching the election sermon, (so envied a privilege!) exalted to the very proudest eminence of superiority to which the gifts of intellect, rich lore, prevailing eloquence, ~nd whitest sanctity could exalt a New England priest in those early daysand meanwhile his much-enduring-partner-in-guilt, Hester Prynne, is standing beside the scaffold of the pillory, ~vith the scarlet letter still burning on her breaststill burning into it! There remains but for him to mount that scaffoldin haste, as one in articulo mw-/is, to take his shame upon himand to lay open the awful secret, though it be red like scarlet, before venerable elders, and holy fellow- pastors, and the people at large, whose great heart is appalled, yet overflowing with tearful sympathy. The injured husband, again, is presented with memorable intensity of coloring. He quietly pitches his tent beside the dissembler, who knows him not; and then proce