Chapter VII: Part II: Courtship (3)

In one instance the pupils say, that "believing the results of experiment weightier than theory, we beg leave respectfully to express those convictions respecting the plan of our institution, which have been created solely by our own experience in its details. 1. We are convinced that the general plan is practicable. 2. That the amount of labor required (three hours per day) does not exceed the actual demands of the human system. 3. That this amount of labor does not retard the progress of the student, but by preserving and augmenting his physical energies, does eventually facilitate it. 4. That the legitimate effect of such a system upon body and mind, is calculated to make men hardy, enterprising and independent; and to wake up within them a spirit perseveringly to do, and endure, and dare. 5. Though the experiment at every step of its progress has been seriously embarrassed with difficulties, neither few in number nor inconsiderable in magnitude, as those know full well who have experienced them, yet it has held on its way till the entire practicability of the plan stands embodied in actual demonstration. In conclusion, (they add,) we deem it a privilege, while tendering this testimony of our experience, to enter upon the record our unwavering conviction, that the principle which has been settled by this experiment involves in its practical developments an immense amount of good to our world; it is demanded by the exigences of this age of action, when ardor is breathing for higher attempt, and energy wakes to mightier accomplishment."

On a subsequent occasion another set of pupils belonging to the same institution, express their convictions in a similar tone of approbation.

"The influence of the system," they say, "on health, is decidedly beneficial, as all of us can testify who have pursued it for any length of time. We can pursue our studies not only without injury, but with essential advantage. Not only is our bodily power increased instead of being diminished on this plan, but the powers of the mind are augmented, while moral sensibility is not blunted by hours of idleness and dissipation. We suffer no loss of time, as no more is spent in labor than is usually spent by students in recreation; and we are taught to improve every hour. Our opinion is, that intellectual progress is accelerated rather than retarded {250} by this system. In its success, we are convinced, is deeply involved the prosperity of education, and the great work of evangelizing the world."

The students of Cumberland College in the State of Kentucky, say, "we beg leave to state the results of our own experience. Having been for a considerable time, members of a manual labor institution, we have had an exhibition of its principles and efficacy continually before us; and we are convinced that labor, for two hours or more each day, is essential to the health of all close students, and equally necessary for the development of the mind."

The young men in the theological institution at Hamilton, in the State of New York, say, "we feel the fullest conviction that every student who neglects systematic exercise, is effecting the ruin of his physical and moral powers. Nor is the influence of this unpardonable neglect less perceptible or deleterious, as it regards his moral feelings. Without it, however pure his motives, or ardent his desire to do good, we have but faint hopes of his success. Such habits as he would inevitably form, we believe, would ruin all the nobler energies of his nature. We think three hours appropriate exercise each day will not eventually retard progress in study. We must say, from five or six years experience in the institution, we have not learned that any close student has ever completed an entire course of study without serious detriment to health. We hope, however, our present system of exercise will soon enable us to exhibit a different statement. In the preservation and improvement of health, we have found an unspeakable benefit arising from systematic exercise. Without it, we deem it impossible for the close student to preserve his health."

The superintendants of a kindred institution, in a document which they have laid before the public, declare, that they "have great satisfaction in being able to state that a strong conviction pervades the minds of the _young men_ generally, as well as their own, that laborious exercise for three hours per day does not occupy more time than is necessary for the highest corporeal and mental energy; that so far from retarding literary progress, it greatly accelerates it; that instead of finding labor to encroach upon their regular hours of study, they find themselves able, with a vigorous mind, to devote from eight to ten hours per day to intellectual pursuits; that under the influence of this system, mental lassitude is seldom if ever known; that good health and a good constitution are rarely if ever injured; that constitutions rendered delicate, and prostrated by hard study without exercise, have been built up and established; that this system with temperance is a sovereign antidote against dyspepsia and hypochondria, with all their innumerable and indescribable woes; that it annihilates the dread of future toil, self-denial, and dependence; secures to them the practical knowledge and benefits of agricultural and mechanical employments; gives them familiar access to, and important influence over that great class of business men, of which the world is principally composed; equalizes and extends the advantages of education; and lays deep and broad the foundations of republicanism; promotes the advancement of consistent piety, by connecting _diligence in business_ with _fervency of spirit_, and will bless the church with such increasing numbers of ministers of such spirit and physical energy, as will fit them to _endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ_."

We are every day more and more impressed with the importance and practicability of the manual labor system, as the only one by which the increasing hundreds and thousands of the pious and talented sons of the church can be raised up with the enterprise, and activity, and power of endurance, which are indispensable for the conversion of the world to God.

To these statements the individual who has collected them, adds his own testimony in the following language: "I have been for three years and a half a member of a manual labor school. The whole number of my fellow students during that period was about two hundred. I was personally acquainted with every individual, and merely 'speak what I know,' and 'testify what I have seen,' when I state that every _student_ who acquired a reputation for sound scholarship during this time, was a _fast friend_ of the manual labor system. The most intelligent, without a single exception, were not only thoroughly convinced of the importance of the system, but _they loved it with all their hearts_. They counted it a privilege and a delight to give their testimony in its favor, and they _did it_ in good earnest. Their approval of the system rose into an intelligent and abiding passion; and it is no marvel that it was so; for they had within them a permanent, living consciousness of its benefits and blessings. They felt it in their _bodies_, knitting their muscles into firmness, compacting their limbs, consolidating their frame work, and thrilling with fresh life the very marrow of their bones. They felt it in their _minds_, giving tenacity to memory, stability to judgment, acuteness to discrimination, multiform analogy to the suggestive faculty, and daylight to perception. They felt it in their _hearts_, renovating every susceptibility, and swelling the tide of emotion. It is true, with a few, a very few of the students, the system was unpopular, and so were languages and mathematics, philosophy and rhetoric, and every thing else in the daily routine, _save the bed and the dinner table_. Such students were snails in the field, drones in the workshop, dumb in debate, pigmies in the recitation room, and cyphers at the black board.

"In every manual labor school which I visited in my tour," he continues, "it was the invariable testimony of trustees and teachers, that the talent, the scholarship, the manliness, the high promise of all such institutions, were found among the pupils who gave the manual labor system their hearty approval; whereas if there were among the students brainless coxcombs, sighing sentimentalists, languishing effeminates, and other nameless things of equivocal gender; to prostitute _their_ delicate persons to the vile outrage of manual labor, was indeed a _sore affliction!_"

We shall close these selections by adding to them the testimony of an individual[4] of distinguished literary attainments, whose advantages for obtaining correct information on this topic, as well as many others, have been of the most favorable kind.

[Footnote 4: Professor Stuart.]

"The God of nature," he observes, "has designed the body for action; and all efforts to counteract this design, end of course in disappointment, sooner or later. The same God has designed that men should _cultivate_ {251} _their minds_; and I never can believe that this is deleterious in itself; it is so only when we neglect what he has bidden us to observe, i.e. daily discipline and effort to preserve health.

"Students want vacations, journeys, remission from employment, &c. &c. and this at a great expense of time and money. Why? Because they will not be faithful, _every day_, to watch over their health, and to use all the requisite means for its preservation. Why should the farmer, the mechanic, the merchant, the physician, the lawyer, support a never ceasing round of employment, and the student not? Is there any curse laid by heaven upon study? No; it is inaction--laziness--that makes all the mischief, and occasions all the expense. This is my full persuasion from thirty years experience, and somewhat extensive observation."

To these selections others of similar interest and importance might be added from the _Report_ from which they have been derived, particularly the numerous and harmonious opinions of literary men, _on the necessity and utility of regular systematic exercise to the student_; but our time forbids the indulgence, and the maxim of _Festina ad finem_ admonishes us to cut short this address.

From the view that has been taken, we perceive then, with a clearness which cannot be mistaken, that the manual labor system of education is applauded by "a cloud of witnesses," and commended to our patronage and attention by arguments and facts innumerable, palpable, and unanswerable. Will the inquiry be misplaced, when we ask, Shall it _here_, (on this consecrated ground, this literary _high place_, which is destined to send forth a mighty stream of influence for good or ill, to an extent which no arithmetic can calculate,) shall it _here_ receive the countenance and patronage which it so richly deserves? Manual labor schools are already in successful operation in this southern country, and the prosperity that has attended them has been such as to silence the cavils of opposers, and remove the apprehensions of the distrustful. With all enlightened and candid persons there can be but _one mind_ respecting their practicability and their _peculiar_ importance in this southern region. It is the very section perhaps, of all others, within the limits of our republic, that is best adapted to their growth, both on account of its soil and climate, and in which, from its peculiar situation, their influence is most imperiously demanded.

Again, then, I ask, will "the ancient and honorable Dominion" consent to be outstripped by her neighbors in an enterprise of so much grandeur and promise? Will parents, instructors, and pupils, repose in inglorious ease, and cry _a little more sleep, a little more folding of the hands to sleep_, while others in the race of competition press forward and bear off the prize? Will the young men of Hampden Sidney and Union Seminary sit still; or will they "awake, arise, and put on their strength?" Interests that are dear as honor and life, are suspended on the _practical_ reply which this inquiry receives.

It is stated, as is probable on good authority, that in years that have gone by, "some of the Virginian philanthropists offered to educate some of the Indians, and that they received from the shrewd savages the following reply." (He that hath ears to hear, let him hear what the _savages_ have said to the _civilized_!)

"Brothers of the white skin! You must know that all people do not have the same ideas upon the same subjects; and you must not take it ill that our manner of thinking in regard to the kind of education which you offer us does not agree with yours. We have had in this particular some experience. Several of our young men were some time since educated at the Northern Colleges, and learned there all the sciences. But when they returned to us, we found they were spoiled. They were _miserable runners_. They did not know how to live in the woods. They could not bear hunger and cold. They could not build a cabin, nor kill a deer, nor conquer an enemy. They had even forgotten our language; so that not being able to serve us as warriors, or hunters, or counsellors, they were absolutely good for nothing."

The calamities which are here set forth in such graphic terms have by no means been confined to the fathers and the sons of the forest. The _white_ young men of Virginia, in great numbers, have since been educated in like manner "at Northern Colleges," or nearer home: and when restored to their parents and guardians have been found, for the most part, like the sons of the _red men_, to be "_absolutely good for nothing_." They have proved to be "miserable runners." Not one in twenty of them has risen to eminence in professional life. They could "bear neither hunger nor cold." They were practically ignorant of mechanical and agricultural employments, and strongly averse to them; too high minded and indolent to labor, and too weak and effeminate to "serve as warriors, and hunters, and counsellors." Will Virginian parents learn a lesson from their own past experience and that of their savage predecessors? The corrective which we propose for the evil complained of, (and it is too serious for merriment,) is the immediate introduction of the manual labor system into all our institutions of learning. If this feature is introduced and kept up in them, with a prominence proportioned to its importance, our youth, who are educated in them, if not fitted for usefulness and distinction in the departments of law, medicine and theology, will not be utterly "spoiled" as the sons of the _red men_ were; but will be good "runners," useful and respectable laborers, mechanics, planters, and farmers. This, after all, is the population, of which, more than any other, Virginia needs an increase. The low state of mechanic arts and of agriculture among us, or rather the prevailing vice of _indolence_, is the true source of the present disasters which are so often made the theme of popular declamation by stump orators and upstart politicians. It is _indolence_, more than any or every thing else, that checks the spirit of enterprise; that covers this fairest portion of our continent with _sackcloth_, and spreads over it the sable shroud of desolation. Let then a revolution be effected in our system of education. Let our youth be trained for the duties of practical life. Let them be instructed in what is useful, as well as ornamental; and let them bring minds stored with the riches of learning and science, to bear and act on _the subject of most absorbing temporal interest to the American people_, I mean the neglected subject of _agriculture_, and all will yet be well. The citizens of the South will then be independent indeed, and not in boast. Labor, like "marriage," will be "honorable in all." The work which misguided abolitionists are laboring, with a zeal that would be becoming in a better cause, to perform {252} by a meddlesome and violent interference, will be effected by the gradual and voluntary agency of her own inhabitants. Her population will multiply. Commerce will thrive. Barren fields will be clothed with verdure. The productions of the earth will be increased. Crowded cities and smiling villages will spring up. The halls of legislation will be occupied by the hardy and virtuous cultivators of the soil, the men of all others the most safe to be entrusted with the enactment and administration of laws. Colleges, academies, and schools, will prove the nurseries of enlightened, healthful, industrious, and happy freemen; and Christianity, untrammelled by the obstacles that now so powerfully impede its progress, with a field wide and waving with a luxuriant harvest open and inviting before her, will send abroad her genial and regenerating influences, and render this the Paradise of lands.

We will conclude this, perhaps too protracted performance, in the language of an Indian Cazique.

"Would you know," he asked, "how I would have my children instructed in the ways of men? Look at this handful of dust gathered from the golden bed of the silver-flowing Aracara. What an infinite number of particles--yet how few the grains of ore which we prize; how great the toil which is necessary to sift out and separate them from the worthless heap in which they are concealed; even so it is with the history of the generations of men, from the creation downwards. Events have passed which no tongue can number; but the events which mark the character of human nature, and which are worthy of being treasured up in our memories, are but few, and only by the eye of wisdom to be distinguished.

"Let my children then be taught what these few events are; let them be spared the life's labor of turning over the mountain of dross which time has heaped up, in search of the scattered gems which are to lighten their path through the world; conduct them at once into the only treasury of true knowledge--that treasury which Philosophy has gleaned from the experience of thousands of generations."

SONG OF LEE'S LEGION.

Our chargers are plunging and pawing the ground,
And champing and tossing the white foam around--
So fleet to pursue, and so mighty to crush,
No foe will remain in the path where they rush.
Away, then, my heroes--away, then, away!
Let "Freedom or Death!" be the watchword to-day.

Remember the burnings we witnessed last night;
The fair and the feeble we passed in their flight;
The wail of the wounded, the red blood that flowed,
Still warm in the path, where by moonlight we rode.
Away, then, &c.

The marauder is nigh--he is hurrying back;
The sand, as we gallop, still falls in his track.
On! on! then, our swords for the battle are rife,
And soon they shall drink at the fountain of life.
Away, then, &c.

_Prince Edward_.

NATURAL BRIDGE OF PANDI, IN COLOMBIA, SOUTH AMERICA.

The Bridge of Pandi is distant two days journey from Bogotá. We made it less toilsome by remaining several days at Fusugazugá--an intermediate village, which possesses the advantage of a fine climate and refreshing verdure, unknown to the plain upon which this city stands. The bridge is situated considerably lower--almost in the _tierra caliente_ hot country--where the thermometer rose to 86°, but still the heat was not very oppressive.

Our first view of the bridge was just at the moment when such a scene is most impressive. The sun had sunk behind the mountains. We were without a guide, nor did we need one. We had merely to follow the high road--a mule path--down into a deep ravine, near the bottom of which we heard the sound of rushing waters. On reaching the bridge, this sound and the dismal shrieks of numerous birds of night--the sole occupants of this gloomy region--called our attention to the scene below us. We then first knew we were upon the bridge of Pandi. Three hundred and fifty-eight feet beneath, rushes a stream, called Suma Paz, which fills the entire chasm--being, if we can trust our sight under circumstances so deceptive, about thirty or forty feet wide. We could see the deep chasm and the dark waters of the stream--but where was the bridge which Nature built? We were standing upon a rude structure of logs with railings so frail as almost to dismay the most daring; but upon closer examination we discovered that it rested upon several huge fragments which had fallen and lodged so as to form the bridge for which we were searching. The edges of the largest rock rest upon other rocks on one side, and on the other upon the sloping face of the severed mountain. Upon this we descended, and enjoyed a better view of what the imagination is so readily inclined to paint as infernal regions. The cries of the birds echo from the depths below, like the shrieks of troubled souls destined to the sad fate of never leaving the abodes to which their sins had driven them. Night was rapidly approaching; and with the feelings which the scene had inspired, we retraced our steps to the little village of Pandi or _El Mercadillo_, to which we had to clamber nearly half a league. Our hamacs welcomed us to rest, and after the fatigues of the day, sleep soon robbed us of our wandering thoughts.

On the following morning, we repeated our visit to the bridge, and reviewed the whole more leisurely. Although the awe of the preceding evening had subsided, our admiration was undiminished. The same Great Being which had ruptured the mountain asunder and opened a fearful fissure, had thrown down the loose fragments, and so lodged them as to contribute to the convenience as well as to arouse the astonishment and wonder of all who crossed. The natives of the country have destroyed much of the effect by the rude logs which they have laid upon the rocks across the chasm. It is also remarkable, that this fissure could not be passed elsewhere for many leagues in either direction.

How will the Natural Bridge of Pandi compare with that of Rockbridge County in Virginia? The beauty of this must sink before the awful and grand sublimity of the other. In that you would look in vain for the {253} well turned arch of this, while the latter is deficient in the almost unfathomable abyss and in the surrounding scenery and in the roaring waters of that of Pandi. I should have observed, that no means exist of reaching the bottom--nor is it desirable, as the bridge in itself, seen from below, cannot be imposing.

The birds which occupy the ledges and caverns formed by the ruptured rock, are called "_Pajaros del Puente_"--Birds of the Bridge--and are not known elsewhere. They are birds of night, and sally out only after it is dark into the neighboring dense forests, in search of the fruit with which they maintain themselves. If perchance the light of day overtake them before they regain their dark abodes, it is so noxious to them that they cannot survive it. Thus say the natives--and that this is shown by their being many times found dead in the paths of the mountains. They are equal in size to a pheasant--their color is a reddish brown, and their beaks square and very hard.

LINES

On the Statue of Washington in the Capitol.

It is our WASHINGTON that you behold,
Whom Nature fashioned in her grandest mould,
To be the leader of a noble band,
The friends of freedom, and their native land:
A perfect hero, free from all excess;
Above Napoleon, though he dazzled less:
Not quite so great for what he did, 'tis true,
But greater far for what he did not do:
And, nought he ought not, all he ought, to be,
He made his country, and he left her, free.

EPIGRAM.

"A party, you tell me," says Dick, not invited,
But who would not believe such a beau could be slighted;
"A party at Modeley's?--can't possibly be;
For how could he have such a thing _without me_?"

FALL OF TEQUENDÁMA, IN COLOMBIA, SOUTH AMERICA.

The _Salto de Tequendama_, a remarkable cascade, of which we had heard much, and which has been described in most glowing language, is distant to the southwest of Bogotá about fifteen miles. We had made arrangements to visit it a fortnight ago, but the illness of one of our party caused us to defer it. We now determined to see the fall, and return to the city on the same day. To accomplish our design, we set out before day (about 5 o'clock) this morning. A rapid ride of an hour and a half brought us to the small village of Suácha, situated upon the plain of Bogotá, near its southern border. The last earthquake, from which Bogotá suffered so severely, was felt with the utmost violence at Suácha, and prostrated entirely the church, which is again rising from its ruins. Our route continued a league further over the plain, and we crossed the river Funza, whose course has been very circuitous through the plain, but is particularly devious where we passed over it, upon an uncouth and not very safe bridge, to the Hacienda de Canoas. The river winds sluggishly to our left towards the fall. Our path led over the high hills which appear to have been once the banks of the great lake which must have covered the plain which the view from these heights embraces. To eminences which are wholly devoid of trees succeed others which are well wooded, where we enter a more picturesque region, worthy of the fine scene which we were now eager to witness. We were convinced that we were near it, and listened for the deafening roar which we expected would betray the rush of the waters into the tremendous gulf that receives them. The path was steep, and shortly before we arrived at the spot where it was necessary to alight from our horses, the sounds of the fall reached us; but we were distant from it a few hundred yards only. My first sensation was disappointment, when I stood upon the brink of the chasm into which a stream whose greatest width is estimated at forty feet, is precipitated to a depth which did not seem to exceed three hundred feet, but which is estimated to be more than six hundred. The river being now uncommonly low, a sheet of water about fourteen or fifteen feet in width, is tossed about thirty feet upon a ledge of rocks, from which it dashes in foam to the bottom of the deep abyss, a large proportion of it dissipating in spray. The foot of man has never trodden the bottom of this chasm. Its sides are perpendicular to a considerable distance below, and the strata of rock are exactly horizontal, so that no means of descending have yet been discovered within the curvilinear aperture, where the mountain seems to have parted and given passage to the Funza.

Attempts have been made repeatedly to reach the foot of the cataract by ascending the bed of the river, into which it is easy to enter at some distance below. A fall of about twenty feet had resisted heretofore the efforts of every adventurer. A party of Americans preceded us to-day, provided with ladders and ropes, with a determination to surmount this obstacle. In this they succeeded, but another yet more difficult presented itself--this they also surmounted with the strengthened hope of having then overcome every obstruction which resisted the accomplishment of their wishes. They were too sanguine. On ascending further, a fall of about forty feet now stared them in the face, and resisted all their efforts. Perpendicular rocks enclosed the narrow chasm. The only possible ascent was through the dashing torrent--with this they struggled nobly, but they had not the means of resisting it. The abode of innumerable parrots, whose screams, heard faintly at the height on which we stood, warned us of the exertions made to encroach upon their domain, that continues unmolested and untrodden by man. We spent more than two hours at the fall, hoping to witness the success of the enterprising adventurers. Although disappointed in this respect, we were amply compensated by the increased admiration with which we viewed this beautiful fall, notwithstanding it is seen so imperfectly. There are two spots from which good views may be obtained. We must leave to the fancy to imagine the grand effect of a sight from beneath it. It is to be hoped that ladders will be placed or that some means will be discovered to gratify the ardent desire one naturally feels of seeing to the best advantage this admirable work of nature.

{254} The Fall of Tequendáma has been compared with the cataract of Niagara. Such a comparison cannot be instituted fairly. In the one, nature has been most lavish with her grandeur and sublimity: the other she has endowed liberally with the beautiful and the picturesque. The height of Tequendáma may be four times greater than that of Niagara; its width not the thirtieth part: and to judge the comparative volume of the waters of both, it suffices to reflect, that Tequendáma drains the river Funza; Niagara the waters of four inland seas, which united, are not exceeded in size by the Gulf of Mexico.

LIONEL GRANBY.

CHAP. IX.

The proudest land of all,
That circling seas admire--
The Land where Power delights to dwell,
And War his mightiest feats can tell,
And Poesy to sweetest swell,
Attunes her voice and lyre.
_Aristophanes_.

The ship in which I had embarked soon fell down the river, and, aided by a favorable breeze, we quickly shot by the massy and motionless scenery of the majestic Rappahannock. Changing our course we entered one of the beautiful and tributary waters of the Chesapeake, and dropped anchor directly in front of an antique mansion, the stately residence of a proud and well known name. An extensive garden, which declared the taste and pedantry of its owner, for its chaste and beautiful model was drawn from the pages of the Odyssey, stretched its broad walks to the margin of the river. A throng of merry girls and romping boys poured down from the porch of the house, welcoming with glad voices that, happiest of all Virginian visiters, an importing ship. Disguising myself I leaped into the boat which left the vessel, and ere its keel had grated on the sand, many negroes had rushed into the water, and were dragging it to the shore with songs of triumph and congratulation. An elderly gentleman, grave, dignified and thoughtful--peace to his fair-top boots and glittering buckles!--now appeared and commenced the usual ledger conversation with Captain Z. about the quality and price of his tobacco, and in a whisper he told him on no account to sacrifice his "new ground sweet scented." Holding a paper in his hand he called aloud to his family to enter their wishes on that magic tablet, which he was about to send _home_. No commercial newspaper ever declared a more incongruous catalogue of the comforts of life and the luxuries of opulence: lace and iron, silk and spades, wine and jesuit's bark, all figured in the same column; and when the negroes were called on to declare what they wanted, they filled the mystic page with calico, fiddle strings and bottles. Many a bronzed and ebon colored child was led up to old massa by its mother, and each lisping petition for a hat or a fishing hook, was sacredly entered on the list.

I returned to the ship, and dropping a hasty line to my uncle, informing him of the reasons which compelled me to leave Virginia, despatched it by the last canoe which quitted our side, and retiring to sleep I did not awake until the ship was dancing gaily over the broad waters of the Atlantic. I looked on the furrowed track behind me--and, far in the amber west, the lessening glory of the Virginian coast was sinking in the wilderness of waters. With a fixed and quenchless eye I watched its expiring outline, and when it had sunk down into a wavy and shadowy mist, I felt as the exile whose pulseless heart has heard the requiem of hope and the knell of love. Young, inexperienced, and ignorant of the world, I was launched like a rotten barque in the tempestuous ocean of man, while home, love, hope and all the primal sympathies of the human heart, were to me, sealed, buried, and forever annihilated. I had fled!--leaving a name associated with the scorn of honor and the vengeance of society. Who that heard of me would believe me innocent in the duel with Ludwell, or who would believe that self-defence prompted my attack on the life of Pilton? God in his goodness gave us tears! I had them not, and from a tearless eye I became sullen and satisfied, with no human passion but an increased affection for Ellen Pilton, which streamed through my heart like phosphoric words on the dark walls of a cavern. I was proud to be the victim of wayward and adverse circumstances, and yielding to their mystic control, I found that destiny weaves an argument which philosophy cannot unravel.

On the second day of our voyage, Scipio presented himself, telling me that he was sent from Chalgrave with letters for the ship, that he had discovered me through my disguise, that he had secreted himself on board of the vessel, and that he was determined to follow me to the end of the world. I soon settled the manner and purpose of his appearance with the captain, and found in the priceless fidelity of my servant, a green spot on which my heart might rest from its storm of revenge and misanthropy.

Cheered by the balmy spirit of the western gale our gallant ship sped her onward course, and the glad cry of land which echoed through the vessel as we approached the beetling coast of England fell on my ear like words of mercy to the prisoned captive. Standing on the quarter deck, I saw before me the bustle, hurry and turmoil of commerce. The surface of the water was chequered with a dense throng of vessels, while, broadly floating in the breeze, appeared that proud flag on whose glory the sun rises, and over whose empire he sets. As a Virginian! as one whom early education and childish associations had inspired, I gazed with a hallowed enthusiasm on that rugged land, which looked down from its iron-bound eyre, the eagle of the deep--that land which my boyish feelings had made the seat of intellect and the dwelling place of genius. The early colonists had called it by the tender name of Home; and the mellow tales of its glory, which had been poured into my infant ear, were now started into life and freshness. It was the land of Sir Philip Sydney, Hampden and Pope, and on each spot of its classic earth Poetry had raised her hallowed memorials, and Patriotism its stirring examples. From the frozen sea to the burning tropics her name is respected, her influence felt, her example imitated, her kindness cherished, her resentment dreaded, while a radiant wake of glory streams behind the path of her march. Far in the forests of the western world, the names of her gifted sons who have asserted the triumphs of virtue or the dignity of man, are heard, and are re-echoed back from the Thames to the Ganges, and from the Volga to the Mississippi. In the solitude of power she stands alone, {255} a massy trunk, resisting anarchy and bending to every storm of revolution, yet rising from each assault in more verdant and luxuriant foliage. Philosophy may claim the gigantic birth of Printing--Religion the Reformation, and Science the discovery of Gunpowder, as the great engines which opened the path of civilization. The mind of England seized these mighty levers, her hand perfected them, and achieved for herself that towering fame which pours its lustre from the table-land of the world. This picture was the dream of ignorance. Alas! how soon was its frost-work melted before the light of truth! Unconscious of the hideous vice which lurked beneath the gorgeous fabric, I saw only its glowing outline--I was ignorant of its rapine, fraud and avarice--its selfishness of motive and act--its singleness of empire and power, and of that universal corruption which yields power to wealth, and honors to knavery. The demon of gain is abroad throughout England--a pestilence which walketh in the darkness of the human heart, expanding its ravenous arms in her cities, or secretly hugging its penny in her lowliest cottages. Her metropolis is the shamble of the universe--a capacious reservoir, where vice elbows virtue, and where selfishness festers itself into the loathsome obesity of the toad. Every thing is on sale, and in the "mixed assortment" of her merchandise, even learning, genius and wit, succumb to the secret spirit of her ledger.

"E'en the learned pate
Ducks to the golden fool."

Without her Christianity, which often blooms in guileless and untainted simplicity, her blood-stained empire would tumble to the earth. It is the influence of this holy faith which neutralizes the excess of profligacy, and stimulates her expanded philanthropy. Excited by its spirit, benevolence becomes religion, patriotism springs into virtue, and in the remotest corners of the earth we see the charity of the Christian opening the purse and heart of the Englishman.

I leave the narrative of sights and curiosities to the guide book. Born in the wilderness, my mind was as rugged as the grandeur of the forest, and like the native Indian I had naught to admire but the still and noiseless majesty of my own beautiful land. The stately palaces--the lofty towers and all the fantastic pageantry which opulence engenders, were but the moral to the fine sarcasm which antiquity has fabled in the bridge of Salmoneus. Man's "brief authority" decorates folly with a pyramid or a cathedral, and succeeding ages call it glory. What son of Virginia would barter her broad rivers--her sunny sky--her fertile plains, and her snow-capped mountains, for the crumbling monuments of tyranny and superstition, or the fœtid marts of gain? Who would exchange the infant purity of the western world for the hoary vice and aged rottenness of Europe? Uncontaminated by the example of England, we have yet seized from her the sacred flame of freedom--her _habeas corpus_ without the act of impressment--her _bill of rights_ without a borough representation, and the rose of civil liberty transplanted to the west has bloomed without a thorn.

I was soon in London, and received many marks of attention and kindness from the representatives of an old commercial house, which for years had sold every hogshead of tobacco from the Granby plantations. My bills were honored, and at the instance of Scipio I took a suite of rooms in the most fashionable street of the city. Without letters of introduction, and too proud to search for my many noble relatives, (my uncle had drugged me with their amors, duels and honors!) I succumbed in silence to that cheerless solitude which flaps its funeral wing around the indurated selfishness of a crowded city. At the Virginia Coffee House, I frequently found many of my own countrymen, who were making the tour of Europe only because their fathers had done it. An utter contempt of money--a carelessness of air and manner--a generous and open hearted confidence in every one--a familiarity with the Doncaster and Epsom turf--an anxious zeal in attending the courts of Westminster, and the gallery of the House of Commons, with a thorough knowledge of the literary history of England, and the places hallowed by Shakspeare and the Spectator, were their striking and changeless characteristics.

Shortly after my permanent and fixed residence had been made, I was lounging, as was my wont, in the crowded walks of the Exchange--the only idle being in that heated and feverish walk of gain, when a loud cry broke through the multitude and a horse dashed near me, the foot of his rider hanging in the stirrup. I instantly sprang forward, caught the bridle, leaped on his back, and leaning down I rescued the unfortunate rider from his perilous situation. From this event an intimacy commenced between Col. R---- and myself. His history was brief. High birth and fortune smiled on his cradle. Entering into manhood he had purchased a commission in the army, and had lived out Swift's spirited description of the man of fashion, "in dancing, fighting, gaming, making the circle of Italy, riding the great horse and speaking French." Satiated with the world, he had left it without being either a churl or a misanthrope. He resided in a costly villa near London, which his taste had decorated with elegance and refinement. The massy richness of an aged grove, soothed, without chilling the fancy, and through its broad vista the glimmering light lent itself to diversify uniformity without diminishing grandeur. Consistency towered above vanity, for there were no glades rolled into gravelled plains, nor trees sheared into fantastic foliage--that sickly taste which finds honor in the sacrifice of simplicity, and pride in its outrage on nature. The walls of his house were hung with rare and deeply mellowed paintings, and his capacious library was stocked with the heavy tomes of ancient lore. Gone are those good old books!--their spirit has been turned into a tincture!--their life and soul have been abridged--the stern Clitus has been disgraced by a Persian dress--the march of mind cannot brook a folio! The education of Col. R---- was deeply tainted with the forgotten glory of his library--a wild flower blooming amid the silence of a neglected ruin. He had literature without pedantry, learning without arrogance; and being neither author nor compiler, he yet mingled on equal terms of compliment and civility with the gifted names of his land. Proud pre-eminence of genius! respected even in its slumbers. Though its possessor be unknown to print, though his pen sleep in idleness, like the prophet, the sacred flame plays around his brow and lightens up his onward course.

In his society I drank from a deep stream of {256} intellect pure and unalloyed happiness--yet dashed into bitterness by the remembrance that under his protection I had first visited a gaming table--though he had carried me thither more for the purpose of portraying human character than of making me either the proselyte or victim of its insidious vice.

Come Lionel! said he, gently touching my shoulder, as I was deeply absorbed in the unhallowed rites of the blind goddess--leave this dangerous place! Your warm blood and ardent temperament cannot withstand its harlotry. Crush in its infancy that juggling fiend, which martyrs the pride of mind--the dignities of virtue, the immunities of education, and the consolations of religion.

His warning voice fell on a sodden ear. Seated at a long table, in a magnificent saloon blazing with lights and ornamented with costly curtains of damask, whose billowy drapery dropped over grotesque and luxurious furniture, I bowed with prostrate devotion to the idol of Chance. I was in the temple of suicide--the hell of earth; and inebriated with its deadly vapor, I saw not the thronging crowd, whose passion-stricken countenances alternately displayed the rapid transitions from joy to sadness, from successful cupidity to luckless despair. I went through the usual vicissitudes of the game. I won. Success made me bold, failure excited me to more and more dangerous enterprise. I had drawn on our tobacco merchant until my bills were protested, nor could I ask from Col. R---- the wages of humanity. I paid a heavy premium to one of the loungers of the table, to teach me a system by which I might always win. Duped by its deceitful sophistry, I risked my all--my watch, breast-pin, and all the jewelry of my dress were successively staked and lost. My hand was on the golden locket consecrated as the gift of Isa Gordon. With a painful struggle I preserved it from the gripe of despair, and quitted the accursed table a bankrupt and a beggar!

When I reached my lodgings, Scipio met me with his usual kindness, which I repelled with a severity and harshness that called a tear to his eye. Go! cried I, leave me, I am a broken man and a friendless beggar, I give you your freedom. Go! and for God's sake do not longer tempt my avarice! An unusual cheerfulness spread itself over his countenance--the convincing indication of my fallen fortune. The idea was no sooner conceived, than my despair gave it certainty, and rising I drove my servant from the room with a blow and a curse.

I sold all the furniture with which I had supplied my rooms, and again rushed to the gaming table. The fickle goddess had forever deserted me, and, lost to all sense of shame, I hung around the table, a silent spectator of the deep, passionate, and thrilling drama.

About a week after Scipio's departure, a gentleman accosted me at the table, and delivered a letter which he informed me he had brought from Liverpool. It was written in the sententious style of a merchant, and enclosed a draft in my favor on an eminent banker for fifty pounds.

The writer informed me that Scipio had sold himself for this sum to a Liverpool trader--that he had requested that the money should be sent to me, and that on the day after the purchase he had shipped the servant, with his own free consent, to the West Indies.

I waited on the banker, received the sacrifice of my slave's short-lived freedom; and as I looked on the tear-stained money, I learned from that generous and affectionate fidelity, a lesson which made me loathe with horror the moral prostitution of the gaming table.

THE PATRIARCH'S INHERITANCE.

The following is an extract from an unfinished MS. and occurs at the close of an interview between the Almighty and Abraham, in the course of which is introduced the promise thus stated in Genesis: "And the Lord said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever," &c.

------This pronounced,
The Radiant Form withdraws. And now return
Sunshine and shade, and cool, delicious airs,
Restoring common joys. The saintly chief,
Reviving, stands erect; and still his robes,
With lingering glory, make the moon-beams pale.
Soon all his senses feel the flowing soul,
Quick with new life and thrilling power intense.
His eyes, undazzled, drink the pouring sun,
And sweep entranced the swelling scene below--
Mountains, and hills, and plains, and lakes, and streams.

O, blest, enchanting vision! All around,
Enrich'd with purest green, and all remote
Adorn'd with deepest blue; the bending sky
And farthest summits mingling fainter hues,
Walling the world with sapphire. All he sees,
He hails his own; and burns with lordly flame.
His the down-rushing torrents; his the brooks,
Flashing from every vale; and his the lakes,
Wide sparkling bright, as though a shower of gems
On silver falling scattered countless lights.
His too the rolling woods, the laughing meads,
And rocks of waving grapes--his every wind,
Stirring the world with life and breathing far
Fragrance and music--his the silent cloud,
That fleetly glides along the soft mid-air,
Reflecting, moon-like, from its upper plain
Of snowy beauty, every ray from heaven;
And o'er the under landscape leading on
Its shadowy darkness, running up and down
The ever-changing mountains. Who may tell
The many sources of his gushing joy?
Not only Jordan, and its palmy plains;
Lot's Citied Garden; and the orient heights
Of fruitful Gilead, sweeping to the marge
Of Bashan's mellow pastures: not alone
The visual charms delight his ardent soul,
Around, though fair, and fairer still remote;
But wider regions--lost in distant haze,
Or shut from sight by intercepting bounds--
Fairest of all. Far flies his circling thought
From Edom's southern plains to Hermon's brow,
Frost-wreath'd, and lowlands steep'd in streaming dew;
And on to snow-crown'd Lebanon, with slopes
Of fadeless verdure nursed by living founts,
And glorious cedars swayed by balmy winds,
In whose high boughs the eagle builds her nest,
And on whose roots the fearful lion sleeps;
And thence to Tabor's central cone, and fields {257}
Of Eden, like Esdrelon; and the oaks
Of flowery Carmel, waving o'er the sea;
And Sharon's rosy bloom; and Eshcol's vale,
Purple with vines from Hebron to the coast.
O'er all the range his ravished mind expands,
Warm with high hopes of wondrous days to come.
The promise--like a meteor--how it lights
The gloom of future ages! Lonely there
The childless stranger stands--sublime in faith:
Sure that the ten throned nations reigning round,
In stately power, with pomp of idol shrines,
Shall yield to his descendants; shall behold
His mightier seed--thick as the seashore sands--
Countless as stars that crowd the clearest sky,--
Pouring their myriads over hill and dale,
Casting the champion pride of princes down,
Dashing the templed monsters in the dust,
Sounding the trump of triumph through the land,
Thronging the scene with holier, happier homes,
And rearing high, to flame with heavenly fire,
Earth's only altars to the Only God!

T. H. S.

_Washington, March 17, 1836_.

AMERICANISMS.

The _Americanisms_ of our language have been a prolific source of ridicule and reproach for the British critics. When a word in an American publication has fallen upon the eyes of these literary lynxes, which they have thought an innovation, they have fiercely denounced it as Yankee slang--as a proof of our uneducated ignorance; they have even denied that we understand the English language, or can speak or write it intelligibly. In most of the cases it turned out and was demonstrated, that the poor words thus assailed were true and genuine English, used by their best writers and speakers; found in their best dictionaries; but unhappily for the poor things, unknown to these erudite and conceited knights of the pen, either too careless to turn to their books for information, or having none to turn to. In a few instances in which we have taken a little license with the language, we have seen that after overloading us with abuse for the birth of the child, they have taken it to themselves, and put it into the service of writers and orators of the highest rank. Such was the fate of our Americanisms--_to advocate_, _influential_, in the sense in which we use it, and several others. They found the brats really not such deformities as they supposed, and were willing to adopt and use them; but this did not abate their contempt of the parents. Englishmen residing in England, seem to claim an exclusive right in the invention of English words. In Bulwer's character of _Rienzi_, this hero is said to have been _avid_ of personal power. This is the coinage of the ingenious author; at least I find no authority for it even in the latest dictionaries, nor in any other writer of reputation. Now I have no objection to the introduction of a new word into our language by Mr. Bulwer or any body else, provided that it be done with due discretion, and subject to some just regulation and principle. In the first place, it should be necessary, supplying a want, or at least obviously convenient in the expression of some idea with more precision than it can be done by any existing word. In the second place, it should be in full consistence and harmony with the idiom of the language. Lord Kames, on using a word of his own making, gives this note. "This word, hitherto not in use, seems to fulfil all that is required by Demetrius Phalereus in coining a new word--first, that it be perspicuous; and next, that it be in the tone of the language."

I find no fault with Mr. Bulwer for the production of his mint, but I will not acknowledge that he, or any other English author, has a better right than an American to take this license. We understand the language as well as they do; we derive our knowledge from the same sources, and we shall use the liberty with as much caution, propriety and discrimination. If this monopolizing, exclusive people, could have their way, they would not suffer us to spin a pound of cotton, or hammer out a bar of iron; and now, forsooth, we must not presume to turn a noun into a verb, or add a monosyllable to the stock of English words.

H.

TO RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE.[1]

[Footnote 1: Written soon after his death.]

Start not, great spirit of the mighty dead!
No sneering cynic comes with fiendish tread,
To mock the laurels of thy honored brow,
And ask,--where lies thy strength or glory now?

No snarling critic, jackal-like, to brave
The fearful lion, nerveless in his grave,
Whose living look had shrunk his trembling form,
As craven creatures crouch before the storm:

No saintly, sinning bigot vents his spite
For crimes exposed, or horrors brought to light;
No puppy-patriot, peculator bold,
Would bark at thee, for sneering at his gold:

No spaniel dog, to gain a master's smile,
Would crunch thy bones, thy hallowed grave defile;
No smiling sycophant, or grovelling hind,
Whose soul succumbs beneath a mastermind: