Chapter I: Front Matter (1)

THE SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER:

DEVOTED TO EVERY DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE AND THE FINE ARTS.

Au gré de nos desirs bien plus qu’au gré des vents.
_Crebillon’s Electre_.

As _we_ will, and not as the winds will.

RICHMOND: T. W. WHITE, PUBLISHER AND PROPRIETOR. 1835-6.

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SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.

VOL. II. RICHMOND, NOVEMBER, 1836. NO. XII.

T. W. WHITE, PROPRIETOR. FIVE DOLLARS PER ANNUM.

STANZAS.

BY MRS. E. F. ELLET.

Would’st thou know, stranger, wherefore the vain cares,
And envious strifes, and ills of this sad world
Vex not my thoughts serene,
Nor fright my peace of soul?

Wherefore its wild commotions fret me not,
And the vain pageants of its summer smile,
(More fleeting than the light)
Nor dazzle, nor distract?

It is not that a swelling pride doth lift
My spirit ’bove the reach of changeful Fate,
Or shield me from the ills
To mortal lot assigned;

Or teach me with a scorn unwise to turn
From good on all bestowed, the boon of Heaven:—
’Tis not that spells I bear
By stern cold Reason wrought:—

But in my spirit’s inmost treasure-house
There is a blessed world, from evil free,
Nor wearying cares come nigh
The chambers of the soul!

In this fair home hath Thought her palace reared,
And planted living flowers; there flow the springs
Of Fancy, pure and bright,
In sweet rejoicing streams.

There bends the golden heaven of Poesy,
With gladdening sunlight fraught; there blandest airs
Breathe o’er the fragrant soil,
And palmy groves ascend.

Thus is it that Life’s clamors and complaints,
And idle vaunts, unheeded pass me by,
Like the dull streamlet’s voice,
Or inarticulate wind.

Amid the jarring storm’s discordant strife,
O, searcher after rest! may’st thou too hear
That mightier melody
From chords attuned of Heaven!

MODERN TRAVELLING.

Forty years ago, I used to be a great traveller, and was pretty well acquainted with the means of transportation then in use; but about that time, I retired to the country and settled upon a small farm, where I have, until lately, pursued the even tenor of my way. During the last summer, some business compelled me to set out for a distant point, and I left my little home with extreme reluctance. As I was to travel in a world about which I knew but little, except through the newspapers, I thought it right to rig myself out in somewhat better style than usual, so I put on my best _bib_ and _tucker_ and repaired to town and sought a barber’s shop to get my hair cut and my beard shaved, humming, as I went along, the old song,

“I called to the barber, come shave me boy, do you hear,
And I’ll give you sixpence for to spend in ale or beer;
Shave me, shave me, barber come shave me,
Make me look neat and spruce that Molly may have me.”

Sixpence quotha!—it cost me four and sixpence, at the least. When I opened the door, I was so much astonished at the elegance of the apartment, that I drew back, and would have retired, thinking I had made some mistake, when two or three fellows flew out upon me, and began brushing my coat with such impetuous violence, that I could not escape from them; indeed, it was with much ado that I could prevent my ears from being brushed off, by their whizzing brooms. I was as restive, you may depend upon it, as my horse is under a cedar broom; twice they struck me severe blows on the cheek, but always begged pardon, so I could not be offended; and, indeed, I had made up my mind when I left home, not to betray my ignorance of present customs. All this time two small _shavers_ were dusting my boots, and I protest it was with much difficulty I could keep my legs. After considerable suffering on my part, and repeated declarations of my being satisfied with their services, and paying each of them something, (for I saw they expected it,) they desisted. I now expressed a wish to be shaved and trimmed, and was immediately disrobed, and ushered to a high-backed chair, where my head was roughly thrown back, my chin tucked, and the operation of shaving performed in the _twinkling of an ejaculation_. It did not take long to cut my hair and strangle me with cologne water; but what was my surprise, when they were done with me, to find the whole of my occiput as bare as the palm of my hand, and nothing left upon my head but a few straggling locks at the side, time having already stripped naked my forehead. I was sadly vexed, but what could I say? I had voluntarily put myself in their power, and was devoutly glad when I got into the street, that I had escaped alive from their hands. Well, I had now paid four-and-sixpence; I had lost all my hair; my face had been scratched by brooms and lacerated by a razor, and I had learned in exchange, that barbers were different folks now-a-days from what they used to be, and that men were brushed down like horses—rather a bad speculation! I had not been in this world, it is true, “ever since king Pepin was a little boy,” but I was pretty old, and had never been treated so unceremoniously in my life. I had imagined when I entered the house, that I was going into just such a shop as my old friend Kippin used to keep, who received me with the profoundest of bows, and shaved me with a solemnity of manner that suited my temper exactly. No tawdry ornaments hung upon his walls; no mirrors flashed wheresoever you turned; no newspapers lay scattered around; no {734} Helen Jewetts or other engravings caught your eye. His walls were mute as “Tara’s Halls”—a piece of broken looking-glass stood upon the table, and an old shaving-can, encrusted with the smoke of a thousand fires, sat disconsolately in the chimney; but, nevertheless, these modern fellows cannot shave as Kippin “_used to could_.” There is too much hurry in every thing now-a-days! It is true, shaving must be done by steam—the water ought to be hot, but the razor travels too incontinently fast, and the whirlpools in my beard cannot be crossed over with such despatch—but pshaw! this is nothing to what I have to tell of the changes in this world. My first trip was to be made in a steamboat which was to _start_ (fly, perhaps, would be a better word) at ten o’clock at night. I had never been in one, having been of the same opinion with old what’s his name, who never could be induced to go on board, not even when the boat was lying at the wharf without a particle of fire—when urged to go, and told that there was no earthly danger, he always shook his head doubtingly, and declared “_there was no knowing when accidents might happen_.” However, go I must; my business required despatch, and there was no mode of travelling so expeditious. Accordingly, I went on board, and passing the fire-room, where they were just _firing up_, I stopped, with unfeigned horror, and asked myself if, indeed, I was prepared to die! I almost fancied myself at the entrance of the infernal regions, and the firemen, all begrimed and black and covered with sweat, seemed like the imps of the devil, tossing the damned spirits into the flames. I shuddered and turned away, inwardly vowing if heaven would be graciously pleased to spare me this time, I would never again, voluntarily, put myself in the way of being burnt to death. I proceeded to the cabin, which I found, as yet, unoccupied, and you may be certain if the barber’s shop had surprised me, my amazement was now complete, at finding myself in the most splendid apartment I had ever beheld. I shall not attempt any description, because I have no doubt, Mr. Editor, you have seen many a one; all I shall say is, that having examined every thing with as much wonder as did parson Polyglott when “_he dinner’d wi’ a Lord_,” I laid myself down in a birth, and could not satisfy myself of my personal identity, any more than could _he_ who went once to see some great man, and was treated with so much distinction, that when he retired to bed, he lay some time revolving all that had passed, and the scene around him, and exclaimed, “can this be me!” Putting his foot out of bed, (he had a remarkable foot,) egad! he cried, that is certainly _my foot_. Just so, clapping my hand to the back of my head, and feeling that the barber had nearly scalped me, I became assured that it was indeed your humble servant, and was trying to compose myself, when I heard a cry of “the stage is come,” and in a few moments in walked the captain and seated himself at his writing-table, and immediately afterwards forty passengers, at least, rushed into the cabin, all talking in the loudest key, and dressed in every variety of mode, and seeming to strive with one another who should get first to the captain to pay his money. What does this mean? thought I; wherefore such hurry? “Why need they be so forward with death who calls not on them?” as Falstaff says. I soon found out the cause; they were securing births, and as they passed mine, they severally peeped into it; at length, one prying more earnestly than the others, exclaimed, “halloo, my hearty, you are in the wrong box; you must come out.” I made no reply, and he repeated his command to me to turn out—still I said nothing, and he turned to the captain: “I say captain, here’s a Jackson man in my birth.” “Yes,” said I, feeling my dander rise, as honest Jack Downing says, “and I shall assume the responsibility of staying in it.” Alas! I reckoned without _my host_, for the captain came up and desired me to evacuate the premises. “Why,” said I, “captain, I thought possession was eleven points of law.” “None of your nonsense, sir,” returned he, and took hold of my arm. Seeing how matters stood, I fixed myself, Dentatus-like, with my back to the side of the boat, and seizing my hickory stick, defended myself manfully, but numbers prevailed over valor, and I was, at last, ignominiously dragged forth, like Smith from the Chickahominy Swamp, to the no small amusement of the company, some of whom hurraed for old baldpate. Here was a pretty commencement of my journey! In the end, I was compelled to sleep upon a table, think o’ that! and imagine my horror when I found myself stretched out like a corpse, with a sheet over me!! All my previous fears of being scalded to death rushed upon my mind, and I made sure that this was indeed my winding-sheet. The thumping of the boat; the groans of the lever above, leaping and pitching like some vast giant struggling to be free; the snoring and snorting around me; the intense heat, produced by the juxta-position of so many human bodies, effectually banished sleep from my eyelids; I was “_in a state of dissolution and thaw_,” and wished myself anywhere else, even in “_the Domdaniel caves under the roots of Ocean_,” if there were such a place, so that I could escape my present thraldom. How often have I wondered, said I to myself, that people could be so foolhardy as to live at the foot of Mount Ætna or Vesuvius, where they are liable to be overwhelmed in a moment by burning lava; and here am I, lying near the crater of a volcano, without the hope of escape if there should be an eruption!! Overwhelmed by the oppressive weight of my thoughts, I sunk, from absolute exhaustion, about daybreak, into a doze, from which I was almost immediately aroused by a bell, which I mistook for the last trump, and springing up, perceived that it announced our arrival at the place of destination, and I was forced to huddle on my clothes as fast as possible. Such a scene of confusion and hurry as now presented itself, baffles my poor powers of description. Passengers, porters, trunks, wheelbarrows, hackmen, every body and every thing, in one moving mass upon the wharf, so completely confounded the few brains I had, that I stood like a fool, while “hack, sir?” was bawled in one ear, “hack, sir?” in another—“omnibus, sir? do you go in the omnibus?” One pulled me by the right, another by the left, until my limbs were almost dislocated. At last, remembering a little of my latin, I concluded it must be right to go _with all_, and I cried out “omnibus!” “Your baggage, sir, where is it?” “God only knows, my friend,” said I. “Is this it, sir?” “Yes, yes.” Into the omnibus they shoved me, with such despatch, that had I been the “_stout gentleman_” himself, I am sure none could have seen even the “broad disk of my pantaloons.” It was the first time in my life, that I had ever travelled in a carriage without shutting the door, {735} except once, upon compulsion, when my horses ran off with me; but if you will credit me, sir, there is no door to an omnibus; so I suppose omnibus means without a door, but in what language is more than I pretend to know. Perhaps it may be the _Garamna_ language, but none but the author of the Doctor can tell that. If you should be acquainted with the tongue, Mr. Editor, just drop me a hint in your next number, and I shall be much obliged to you.

Well, praised be heaven, I had escaped the death of a hog, and felt somewhat revived by the morning air. Away we whirled with great rapidity to the rail road depot, where the cars were ready to receive us. We were told that from some irregularity, I never knew what, we were to be drawn for some miles by horses, and I blessed my stars at the occurrence, as I had been anticipating, with some dread, that wonderful velocity of the engines of which I had heard and read so much; but short-lived indeed was my joy, as it began to be a matter of interesting speculation whether the cars meeting us, might not, peradventure, be driven by steam. We had not proceeded far, before our apprehensions were realized. Just as we turned an abrupt curvature in the road, there came the engine roaring and snorting upon us!! Mr. Editor, I have been pursued in my time by a mad bull; I have been upon the point of being tossed upon his horns; I have been in the imminent peril of being run over by squadrons of wild horses which had taken the stampado; I have seen perils by sea and perils by land, but never had I felt such alarm, such destitution of all hope of escape as now. Our driver sprang from his seat, and had just time to unhitch his horses, but what were we to do? One man jumped out and broke his leg, the rest of us kept our seats. I _could_ not leave mine—I was transfixed with horror—my eyes were starting from my head and my mouth wide open. Breathless, we awaited the shock, and soon it came like a thunder-crash. What happened to others I cannot tell. All I remember distinctly is that the concussion was so tremendous, that it brought my two remaining teeth so violently together, that they were both knocked out; they were the last of the Capulets, and I would not have taken a thousand dollars a piece for them; it is a wonder I did not die of fright—my hair, if I had had any, must have turned grey; but thanks to the barber, I had none. I was taken up more dead than alive, and nothing could induce me to hazard my life again. I consigned to the devil all cars, steamboats, rail-roads, their projectors and inventors, solemnly vowing never to be in a hurry again as long as I lived, but to remember the old maxim, festina lente—make haste slowly.

My business I abandoned in despair,—bought the dullest horse I could procure,—sold my trunk and got a pair of saddle-bags, and resolved to jog slowly and safely homeward. After a fatiguing journey, I reached my own house, where nobody knew me. When I told my wife who I was and what had occurred to me, she said it was a judgment upon me for being such a fool as to cut my hair in _that_ fashion. She will never listen to me now when I attempt to repeat the particulars of my excursion, and that is the reason that I have concluded to trouble you with my history. If it should entertain you, and serve as a warning to my countrymen not to be in such a confounded hurry in doing every thing, I shall be repaid for my trouble. The whole world seems to me to be in a sort of neck-or-nothing state; all the sobriety, frugality and simplicity of our forefathers seems to be forgotten, and the only object is, to grow rich suddenly, and time and space must be annihilated in the pursuit.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your most obedient, humble servant,

SOLOMON SOBERSIDES.

FRIENDSHIP,[1] AN ESSAY.

Solem e mundo tollere videntur, qui amicitiam a vitâ tollunt; quâ a Diis immortalibus, nihil melius, nihil jucundius, habemus.

_Cicero de Amicitia_.

[Footnote 1: When New York was in possession of the English during the war of the revolution, the officers, to relieve the monotony of a garrison life, established a society in which some subject of a literary character was discussed at every meeting. Before this society was read this essay, by Mr. Gilchrist—which we print from his original MS. Of their author, personally, we know little, except that he was not an officer in either the army or navy, nor a member of either of the learned professions, although a gentleman of literary taste and extensive acquirements. Henry K. White, in a letter to his brother Neville, mentions a Mr. Gilchrist as one of the contributors to the “Monthly Mirror,” with Capel Lofft, Robert Bloomfield and others. If Mr. G. returned to England he was probably the author of most of the articles in the Monthly Mirror over the signature of _Octavius_. Judge Hoffman and Mr. Dunlap of New York, may be able to give some account of him, as well as of the “_Literary Society_.”

About this same time there existed, perhaps in opposition to, or in ridicule of the “_Literary Society_,” a junto formed by the young ladies, together with the students of medicine, and other young men of New York, and called the “_Dreaming Society_” one or more of whose members were appointed at each meeting to prepare an essay for the next, (either in prose or verse,) which essay was either to be a dream, or to represent the essayist as having obtained it by means of a dream, or to have written it while asleep. The sisters of Lindley Murray; the late Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell; Mr. Dunlap, (we believe,) the author of the “History of the American Theatre;” and Judge Hoffman, were members.]

Pleasure, to be really such, must be the matter of our own free choice and voluntary election; whatever is commanded immediately becomes a duty; and though by the goodness and wisdom of the commander, the paths of duty may lead to pleasure; yet strictly and properly speaking, pleasure can never be enjoined by any authority, can never submit to the bonds of obligation.

No virtue can be more amiable and excellent than _friendship_, no pleasures more refined than that which it affords, and though _friendship_ may be recommended as the most valuable acquisition and the highest enjoyment, it cannot be enjoined as a duty, or as an indispensable obligation; so that, if, after our utmost researches in pursuit of it, we should be disappointed, we cannot be condemned as criminal, or deficient in what we owe to our own happiness.

Friendship, to adopt the definition given by Lord Shaftsbury, is that peculiar relation which is formed by a consent and harmony of minds, by mutual esteem and reciprocal affection. Friendship, therefore, can never be enjoined as a duty, since our lot in life may never be cast amongst those whose minds will harmonize with our own; it is rather to be considered a singular {736} blessing, vouchsafed, perhaps, to few, but when vouchsafed, one of the most exquisite cordials in human life. Intending man for social happiness, the author of his nature, in great wisdom and goodness, hath given this impulse to the human heart; and the heart rarely errs, or misleads us in its hints and admonitions. What a pleasure, what a comfort is it, to have one in perfect amity with us, to whom we can at all times unbosom ourselves with perfect confidence and safety, with whom we can enjoy all the refinements and peculiar pleasures of rational conversation; one who will tenderly enter into and share all our griefs, or kindly participate in all our joys; thus heightening the one, and alleviating the other. What pleasure to have a friend upon the wisdom of whose counsels we can safely rely in all our difficulties, in all our embarrassments; whose power and interest will always be at hand to succor and assist, or whose affection, at least, will always be forward to console and cheer us. Providence gives nothing in mortal life more valuable than such a friend; but the difficulty of the acquisition is in proportion to the value.

I cannot express my sentiments better on the difficulties which attend the acquisition of real friendship, than in the words of one of the most masterly writers of the age. When Socrates, says he, was building himself a house at Athens, being asked by one that observed the littleness of the design, why a man so eminent would not have an abode more suitable to his dignity, he replied, “That he should think himself sufficiently accommodated, if he could see that habitation, narrow as it was, filled with real friends.” Such was the opinion of that great master of human life, concerning the unfrequency of such an union of minds as might deserve the name of friendship.

Multitudes are unqualified for a constant and warm reciprocation of benevolence, by perpetual attention to their interest, and unresisting subjection to their passions; many varieties of dispositions also, not inconsistent with the common degrees of virtue, may exclude friendship from the heart. Some, ardent enough in their benevolence, are mutable and uncertain, soon attracted by new objects, disgusted without offence, and alienated without enmity. Others are soft and flexible, easily influenced by reports and whispers, ready to catch alarms from every dubious circumstance, and to listen to every suspicion which envy and flattery shall suggest. Some are impatient of contradiction, more willing to go wrong by their own judgment, than to be indebted for a safer and better way to the sagacity of others, inclined to consider counsel as insult, and inquiry as want of confidence. Some are dark and involved, equally careful to conceal good and bad purposes, and pleased by showing their design only in the execution. Others are unusually communicative, alike open to every eye, and equally profuse of their own secrets and those of others, ready to accuse without malice, and to betray without treachery. Any of these may be useful to the community, and pass through the world with the reputation of uncorrupted morals, but they are unfit for close and tender intimacy. He cannot properly be chosen for a friend, whose kindness is exhaled by its own warmth, or frozen by the first blast of slander—he cannot be a useful counsellor who will hear no opinion but his own—he will not much invite confidence, whose principal maxim is to suspect—nor can the candor and frankness of that man be much esteemed, who spreads his arms to human kind, and makes every man, without distinction, a denizen of his bosom. Such is the picture of human disposition, drawn by the pen of that great moral master.

Having taken a view of the difficulties to be met with, I shall next take notice of those qualifications which seem necessary to obtain real and permanent friendship: and here we shall find that virtue is the only sure solid basis on which it can be built: if founded on other or less worthy motives, its continuance is short and precarious: as those motives shift and vary, it will vary with them: Cicero, in the treatise from which I have taken the prefatory lines says, “Nec sine virtute, amicitia esse ullo pacto potest.” Such unions deserve not the name of friendship; they are rather confederacies, so much the more dangerous and hurtful, as the uniting causes are mean and vicious.

To this mutual and virtuous complacency, is generally necessary, an uniformity of opinions, at least of those active and conspicuous principles which discriminate parties in government, or sects in religion. When differences in regard to these subsist, debates will arise; vehemence, acrimony and vexation, and, in time, an utter extinction of benevolence, will ensue. Intercourse of civilities may continue, but the poison of discord is infused, and though the countenance may preserve its smile, the heart is hardening and contracting; to use another quotation from the same author, “accedat autem suavitas quædam oportet sermonum atque morum, haudquaquam mediocre condimentum amicitiæ.”

Besides virtue and similarity of leading opinions and dispositions, there are many other qualifications necessary to the refinement of friendship; such as an openness and frankness of temper, joined with the greatest faithfulness, prudence and discretion; a constancy and firmness of mind; an evenness and uniformity of behavior, a suavity of manners, an absence of all jealousy, a readiness to overlook little faults and foibles, and an exquisite and generous sensibility—in short, all the dispositions directly opposite to those before mentioned; partly the produce of a kind and indulgent nature, and partly of virtuous culture.

Let us not, however, forget, while we specify those good qualities necessary to be found in another, that we are under every obligation to cultivate them in ourselves; for as no friendship can either be real or lasting which is not founded on virtue and the good qualities above enumerated, it follows that our entry into the union must encourage the cultivation of every right and amiable principle in the soul. Two virtuous minds will stimulate each other in every laudable pursuit, will guard each other from every wrong propensity, and criminal deviation; and never dare either of them to commit an action which the other would hear of with concern, or behold with a blush.

Nor is this union of less utility for the improvement of the lesser virtues, the graces of life, the arts of pleasing, the “amiable attentions”—as we will surely be solicitous to excel in those attentions, and to become amiable in proportion as we wish to be loved.

To enumerate all the advantages and all the pleasures of friendship, were I equal to the task, would far exceed my limits—that friendship which gives to human life {737} its highest relish, and affords to virtue the strongest support and encouragement. I shall conclude, therefore, with the sentiment with which I began, “quâ a Diis immortalibus nihil melius habemus, nihil jucundius.”

MISPAH.

A late writer tells us, that being on board the packet ship Silas Richards, on his way from New York to Liverpool, the captain one day opened the letter bags in the round house, to sort the contents; and to amuse the passengers standing about him, read aloud some of the most singular superscriptions, when he came to a letter which had a seal with an epigraph on it which ran thus: “Mispah—Gen. xxxi. 49.” “Here,” said he to a clergyman by, (the writer himself, I suppose,) “this is for you to expound.” But the clergyman not being able to do so, ran for his Bible, and soon returning with it open at the place referred to, read out, “Mispah: the Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another.” “Beautiful!” said one. “Beautiful!” said another. “A gem! a gem!” exclaimed a third. “A gem indeed!” cried all together. “And surely,” adds the writer, “the brightest, most precious gem of all, was to find, in such a place and circle, these prompt and full-souled expressions of sympathy on this announcement of religion and christian piety. There were, indeed, powerful tendencies to such sympathy in the circumstances of us all. For who present, whether going _to_ or _from_ his home, did not feel himself separated from those he loved, and loved most dear? And who, with a wide and fitful ocean before him, tossing on its heaving bosom, would not feel his dependence, and looking back or forward to home and friends, lift up his aspirations to that high Providence who sits enthroned in Heaven, and rules the land and sea, and breathe to him the sweet and holy prayer—‘The Lord watch between me and mine, while we are absent one from another?’”

These reflections are all just and natural enough; but they are, perhaps, a little too vague and indefinite. At least, they do not strike me as quite true to the text. For the word “watch” here does not mean simply _protect_, but rather _witness_, and Laban’s idea when he said “Mispah,” was, “may the Lord stand witness, and look out to guard against any infraction of the covenant which has just been made between us.” So the author wanders a little from the point of the thing. And he does so again when he proceeds to ask, “And whose was the hand that fixed this stamp of piety on this winged messenger of love—of love that grows more ardent and more holy as it is distant and long away from its object? The first post-mark was Quebec, and the letter was directed to a quarter-master in London. Was it then, from a wife to a husband? or from a sister to a brother? or what was the relation?” Obviously, such a seal could be used with strict propriety only by one who either was, or was engaged to be, married, to the writ_ee_, and who might very nicely use it at once to assure and remind the absent partner of that conjugal, or connubial fidelity which they had vowed before God. At any rate, it must be felt, I think, by every one, that it would have a peculiar charm when used by a person who might happen to be in such a predicament. And taking the thing in this light, and putting myself for a moment in the shoes of the fair young _fiancée_ who has just set the seal to her letter, I would expound or explain the motto upon it, something in this way:

O what can sooth the sorrow, love,
This anxious absence brings,
But to reflect that one above,
With overshadowing wings,
The witness of our plighted troth,
Will hear, and help, and keep us both?

O may he still our guardian be,
As he hath ever been!
And watch, my love, o’er me and thee,
While ocean rolls between!
And bring thee back, all perils past,
To make our bonds more sweetly fast!

Q.

CHARACTER OF CORIOLANUS.

Coriolanus possessed those traits of character, which in an unpolished age, and amongst a people so renowned for their chivalry as the Romans, are fitted to command universal admiration. Of high birth—of a frank, ingenuous nature—wise in the council-chamber, as he was ardent and intrepid in the field, it would have been strange if he had not soon won his way to the esteem and confidence of his countrymen. Accordingly we find him, after having signalized his name by a series of the most brilliant exploits in a campaign against the Volsci, returning to Rome, to receive in the gratitude and applause of his fellow-citizens, the reward of his heroic deeds. But neither the fame of his splendid successes, nor his own intrinsic dignity, could exempt him from the reverses of fortune. The chaplet with which the fickle goddess one moment decks the conqueror’s brow, the next she snatches away, and leaves him the wretched victim of disappointed ambition. Thus was it with Coriolanus. The Tribunes of the People, those infamous panders to the morbid appetites of the mob, finding it necessary to sacrifice him, the panoply of virtue proved a poor shield against their virulence. Taking advantage of that hauteur of which there was certainly a spice too much in his composition, they very dexterously managed to excite him to expressions of contempt for the commons, on the one hand, and, on the other, to inflame their minds with a sense of imaginary wrongs, and impress upon them a conviction, that if they would not be trampled in the dust, they must dispute every inch of ground with the Patricians, and omit no opportunity to strike a blow at a class of men they were taught to consider their natural enemies. As the influence of the tribunes with the people was unlimited, so their success was complete—their machinations resulting in the condemnation of Coriolanus to perpetual exile. Alas, that we have to deplore that the magnanimity this great man had so often exhibited, should desert him in the hour when most he needed it! Stung to madness that his distinguished services to the state should meet so base a return, he resolves, in an ecstacy of resentment, that Rome shall suffer the meed of her dark ingratitude. He goes over to the enemy, who {738} receive him with open arms, and signify their readiness to do his bidding. An army is placed at his disposal, with which he invades the Roman territory, and ravaging the country as he passes along, at length draws up his legions within a few miles of the city, prepared, in the event of a refusal to comply with his harsh and extravagant requisitions, to whelm friend and foe in one indiscriminate ruin. Seized with consternation at his sudden and unexpected approach, the Romans sue for mercy. Successive deputations, consisting of the friends who had fought at his side in battle, and of the principal citizens who had stood by him when the decree was passed for his unjust and cruel banishment, are in vain sent to intreat him to lay aside his unnatural rebellion. Nothing can move him until, his wife and mother coming out to the camp, and throwing themselves at his feet, he reluctantly grants to their prayers and tears the amnesty which all feebler considerations had not availed to obtain.

Now suppose, for a moment, that the reprobation which the Christian code of morals pronounces on the principle of revenge, be laid out of view; and let it be granted that Coriolanus had a right to retaliate on the men who had so deeply injured him; yet how shall we excuse the design he meditated of involving his innocent friends in the same heavy penalty? When he was banished, it was by a majority of only three tribes. The whole body of the Patricians were in his favor, and profoundly sympathized in his calamity; and he must have foreseen that if the Volscian soldiery, the ancient and uncompromising enemies of Rome, were admitted into the city with Aufidius, his co-equal in command, at their head, that nothing sacred or venerable would be spared by their rapacious violence—that the rights of property, the quiet and security of old men, the purity of virgins and matrons, and the sanctity of temples—in a word, all that age, or innocence, or religion had consecrated, would be made the inevitable victims of the same ruthless invasion. And all this he contemplated unmoved. Surely, in the very conception of an act implicating, in such tragical consequences, not his enemies merely, but his friends also, and those who should have been dearer to him than his own life—his family and kindred—there was a monstrous perfidy from which every mind that has not been too deeply corrupted to appreciate the force of any moral motive, must revolt with horror.

But it may be asked, “How can Coriolanus be justly charged with the crime of those consequences which his clemency prevented?” In estimating character, the man who has once evinced the inveterate malignity of his heart, must be branded with eternal infamy, unless it appears that he subsequently became penetrated with profound contrition, and changed his conduct from the purest and most virtuous motives. Was this true of Coriolanus? Having contemned the higher claims of his country, and thrown off her allegiance, his ultimately yielding to the yearning voice of natural affection was a weakness—an amiable weakness, it may be said—but still a weakness. Such is our mental conformation, that we behold a congruous character with a degree of complacency, even though the character be a bad one; and although we may lend a measure of our sympathy to those good acts of confessedly bad men, which are the mere gratification of a physical propensity, the unbending rigor of reason sternly refuses to allow any moral excellence to those deeds, or to insult the majesty of virtue by assigning them as her offspring. We return, however, to a point temporarily merged, in order to follow up another branch of the argument. The principle of revenge is wholly, and under all circumstances, inadmissible. Nor is it a proper reply to this proposition to say, that ours is an age of moral and intellectual light, and that it is unjust to apply to one who lived two thousand years ago, the same rigid rule of judgment to which he would be subjected at the present day. In the trial of questions involving an abstract principle, there should manifestly be but one standard for all ages and nations. Any other hypothesis will lead to the most glaring absurdities. For if the moral quality of an action could be modified by the unimportant circumstances of _time_ or _place_, there is no crime in the decalogue which may not be justified. Modern heathen nations almost universally allow polygamy; in certain portions of the world murder is deemed innocent; and the ancient Spartan, we know, regarded theft as the prince of virtues. Where is the man who would presume to excuse these practices because they pertain to a barbarous nation, or to a period of moral darkness? Yet may it as well be done, as to justify the practice of revenge in the case under consideration. The ignorance of the age or nation may _palliate_ the conduct of an individual; it cannot justify what is intrinsically wrong; and it would be in the last degree preposterous to put out the lights by which we are surrounded, and go to seek the radiant form of virtue in the dim twilight of heathenism. If Coriolanus had displayed a fortitude in suffering equal to his bravery in action—if he had never suffered a thought of retaliation upon his ingrate country to invade his breast; but, when thrust out from home and kindred, and all that on earth he held most dear, he had sought, in the conscious purity of his heart, and, in a sense of duty discharged, that tranquil happiness which, to a wise man, is of far higher price than the shouts and huzzas of the multitude—that mental peace which can cheer the gloom of solitude, and whose elastic energy can buoy up the soul under the heaviest distresses, his name would have come down to posterity circumvested with a halo of glory, ever enlarging, ever brightening. As it is, there is a spot upon his fame which all his splendid achievements may not wipe off. The man who courts toil, and suffering, and danger in his country’s cause, earns well the patriot’s meed; but he who conquers himself, achieves a nobler triumph. He bequeaths to the generations of all time, in the bright example he leaves for their emulation, a rarer and richer legacy.

There may be glory in the might
Which treadeth nations down;
Wreaths for the crimson conqueror,
Pride for the kingly crown;
But nobler is that triumph hour
The disenthralled shall find,
When evil passion boweth down
Unto the Godlike mind.

In his contempt of this sentiment consisted Coriolanus’ great error. Alas for his fame, that he had not discerned its truth and acted accordingly!

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MR. EDITOR,—Reading the “Belles of Williamsburg” in your July number of the Messenger, induced me to search amongst some old papers for the enclosed graphical and beautiful lines, which though not written at quite so early a period as 1777, will serve to show that in 1799 the halo of refinement and wit was still shining around that classical spot so famed in Virginia history.

P.

BEAUTY TO THE BEAUX OF WILLIAMSBURG.

Gallants! who now so brisk and gay
From night to morn can dance away
As if you ne’er could tire,
Can beauty only warm your heels?
What, is there not one beau that feels
Her flame a little higher?

Have Phœbus and the sacred Nine
Been banished from their wonted shrine
Where Love his tribute paid?
Unaided by Apollo’s rays
Will hymeneal altars blaze
Though sacrifice be made?

Gods! shall Amanda pass unsung?
Shall Stella fair and gay and young
Not swell the note of praise?
Shall blythe Cassandra’s art and fire,
Her tuneful voice and tuneful lyre
No kindred effort raise?

Shall gentle Mira’s sparkling eyes,
In ambuscade where Cupid lies,
Still sparkle on in vain,
As if, instead of lambent fire,
Like Leoparda’s filled with ire
Or clouded with disdain?

Shall twenty other Nymphs beside
Unnoticed pass adown the tide
Of Time so swiftly flowing,
Without one stanza to their praise
To tell the folks of future days
That they were worth the knowing?

Should Valentine’s once blythesome day
Thus quite neglected pass away,
Like some dull Sunday morning,
Narcissa may begin to frown,
Nay, Flora with disdain look down,
So Beaux, I give you warning.

BEAUTY.

_Idalian Grove, 14th February 1799_.

PHILOSOPHY OF ANTIQUITY.

NO. I.

Of all the benefits that modern times owe to antiquity, the most important but at the same time the least often acknowledged, is the boon of philosophy. The poets, orators, and historians of Greece and Rome are in the hands of every school-boy, and are the pleasure and study of all who pretend to education, while the works of Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and the other lights of antiquity (the heralds, they have been called, of the true cross) languish here and there on the shelves of some old library, or in the shop of some antiquarian Bibliopole. There is this remarkable difference between philosophy and the lighter literature of antiquity. Homer and Herodotus, Demosthenes and his fellow orators, flashed out, as it were, from the bosom of the people with no warning—no precursor, and first established that order or sequence of literary cultivation which the experience of subsequent ages has proved infallible; I mean first, poetry and eloquence—next, history, and last of all, philosophy. Philosophy itself was no child of the moment. As the sea-beach gains something as each wave rolls over it, so was it with philosophy. Each age made its deposit at the bank of truth, and slowly and imperceptibly, but with not less security, was that mountain raised, which, however wildly raged the storms of the middle ages—how much so ever its fair face was obscured—still never ceased to exist, but served as a place of rest to the weary bird of literature, a rest whence the yet callow philosophy and unfledged history might wing their infantine flight. We may give an era to history—for there is great difference between it and tradition—we may positively ascertain the first poet, but we cannot approximate to the first philosopher. Socrates is not the only sage who never gave his lucubrations to posterity, and we learn from its very name, (love of wisdom,) that it is coeval with mind, nay, almost one of its principles. Were we to treat as philosophy only what has been written, we should be forced again to bound our researches by what has descended to us, and short indeed would be our course; but it is not so. We know with as much certainty the opinions of those who never wrote, as we do those of Plato and his followers, and are thus able to trace philosophy _ab ovo usque ad mala_, from the alpha not to the omega, for that has not been reached, but to the point at which we find it now.

Philosophy first presents itself to the historian about the commencement of the sixth century. The country where we first behold it, is Asia Minor; beneath its warm climate the Grecian colonists, who from time to time had settled there, grew day by day more and more cultivated, till at length they were the tutors of their father-land. Thales of Miletus, Pittacus of Mytelene in Lesbos, Bias of Priene flourished in a quick succession, while as yet Hellas had produced but Solon, who was more lawgiver than sage, and who would better be associated with Lycurgus than with Thales.

The philosophy of Ionia was echoed back with increased vigor from Magna Grecia. It is customary for the imagination, when Italy is its theme, to fly back to the days of Rome—to revel with Horace and with Cicero, with Virgil and Macænas. How great so ever may be our veneration for those later ages, they should never blot out from memory Italy’s earlier civilization, when Apuleia and Brutium were seats of learning instead of Tuscany, and when Pythagoras was master of its philosophy instead of Cicero and Seneca.

The _point de depart_ of philosophy was the origin of the world and its elementary principle. Perhaps it was necessary that the mental machinery should first be employed upon the grosser matter ere it should seize hold of that most delicate of all materials, mind—that {740} the artillerymen of logic should first acquire skill in battering to pieces erroneous opinions on natural philosophy ere his piece should be directed against errors in ethics and psychology. Its _modus operandi_ was, generally, that of empiricism. This is in a degree true of all from Thales to Plato.

As the astrologers and alchemists of all ages, so did the philosophers of the time of Thales. Though arguing on correct bases, they obtained the most improper results. Pushing their analysis beyond the bound of reason—not content with the phenomena of matter, of which experience has taught us more than suffices for the mind of man, they sought to discover the _arcanum_, the hidden principle of the world’s existence. They failed of course, and it is a humiliating though not less instructive task to glance in succession at the varied, though not less incoherent, labors of those great spirits who, notwithstanding that absurdity which belonged more properly to their age than to them individually, yet emitted occasional glimpses of what we in vain would hope had led to better results.

According to Thales the principle of the world is water. He is said to have been induced to adopt this, in consequence of some partial experiments. There was besides another principle, prime mover of all things, which he called _nous_. To him we are indebted for that best and most ancient of maxims, _Know thyself_.

Friend and townsman of Thales was Anaxamander. He lit his lamp at the same light and cast its blaze on the same subjects. His _point de depart_ is infinity, which he surnamed all-containing and divine, without determining it more precisely. Perpetual changes of earth and of things can take place in infinity. These were his _principia_, but from them he developed multitudes of doctrines which it is not now important to examine. He bent his attention to astronomy, and nearly similar were the doctrines of Pherecydes of Syros. He called his trinity of principles, God, time, and matter. He attempted to explain animated bodies and mankind. He considered the soul as imperishable. Anaxamander and Pherecydes were the two first philosophers who wrote their doctrines out.

Now bursts on us a genius of the most astounding kind—Pythagoras. Mighty as was his fame—great as the influence he exerted on posterity—Homer-like, it seems his doom was to have “no place of burial or of birth.” Iamblychus, in his life of Pythagoras, makes him appear even from his infancy a sage and a philosopher. Where he was instructed—how—by whom—we know not. There are accounts that he travelled far and wide in search of science, studied among the Egyptians for twenty-two years, and travelled so far as to meet and converse with the Indian Gymnosophists. His life was a varied one—now persecuted from town to town—now a prisoner at Babylon. With the sages of Egypt he doubtless there met with, and imbibed a portion at least of that God-revealed doctrine, which we have reason to believe had sent some glimmerings of its glorious radiance to Babylon, the Rome, the Athens of the East.

In our days, when the genius of the press flits from clime to clime—when distance is annihilated, it seems a small matter to us to study the philosophy, to pour over the lucubrations of distant lands; but it was not so then. Each dogma was learned with difficulty and attained with labor; we may then judge how great was that philosophic spirit which prompted its possessor to so long and painful voyages, and how strongly circumstances favored him, turning even apparent obstructions into favorable events. For another paper we reserve the philosophy of Pythagoras.

THE GIRL OF HARPER’S FERRY.

Ah! tell me not of the heights sublime,
The rocks at Harper’s ferry,
Of mountains rent in the lapse of time—
They’re very beautiful—very!
I’m thinking more of the glowing cheek
Of a lovely girl and merry,
Who climb’d with me to yon highest peak—
The girl of Harper’s ferry.

She sailed with me o’er the glassy wave
In yonder trim-built wherry;
Shall I ever forget the looks she gave
Or the voice which rang so merry?
To the joy she felt, her lips gave birth—
Lips, red as the ripest cherry—
I saw not Heaven above, nor Earth—
Sweet girl of Harper’s ferry!

We clamber’d away over crag and hill
Through places dark and dreary;
We stooped to drink of the sparkling rill
And gather the blushing berry;
Dame Nature may sunder the Earth by storms
And rocks upon rocks may serry,
But I like her more in her fragile forms,
My girl of Harper’s ferry.

I followed her up the “_steps of stone_”
To where the dead they bury;
On Jefferson’s rock she stood alone,
Looking on Harper’s ferry—
But I, like Cymon, the gaping clown,
Stood, lost in a deep quandary,
Nor thought of the river, the rock, the town,
Dear girl of Harper’s ferry.

She carv’d her name on the well known rock,
The rock at Harper’s ferry;
You would not have thought me a stone or stock
Bending o’er charming Mary—
Insensible rock! how hard thou wert
Hurting her fingers fairy,
Deeper she writ upon my soft heart—
The girl of Harper’s ferry.

Ye who shall visit this scene again,
This rock at Harper’s ferry,
Come pledge me high in the brisk Champaigne
Or a glass of the palest Sherry—
And this is the name which ye shall quaff,
The name of Mary Perry!
She’s fairer than all your loves by half—
The girl of Harper’s ferry.

{741}

THE KIDNAPPER’S COVE.

I have always felt deeply interested in the past history of the Aborigines of our country; and with a pleasure amounting to enthusiasm, embrace every occasion of retracing the annals of that once noble and heroic, but now degraded and scattered race. Who that has any taste for the wild and picturesque, would not love to roam along the Susquehanna, and call up the associations with which its leafy forests are rife? They were once the favorite hunting grounds of the numerous tribes of Indians, belonging to the empire of the Five Nations, whose sway extended over every mountain, plain and river, from Champlain to Carolina.