Chapter VII: Part 7

We feel even a deeper interest in this book than in the late Table-Talk. But with us (we are not ashamed to confess it) the most trivial memorial of Coleridge is a treasure of inestimable price. He was indeed a “myriad-minded man,” and ah, how little understood, and how pitifully villified! How merely nominal was the difference (and this too in his own land) between what he himself calls the “broad, pre-determined abuse” of the Edinburgh Review, and the cold and brief compliments with the warm _regrets_ of the Quarterly. If there be any one thing more than another which stirs within us a deep spirit of indignation and disgust, it is that damnation of faint praise which so many of the Narcissi of critical literature have had the infinite presumption to breathe against the majesty of Coleridge—of Coleridge—the man to whose gigantic mind the proudest intellects of Europe found it impossible not to succumb. And as no man was more richly-gifted with all the elements of mental renown, so none was more fully worthy of the love and veneration of every truly good man. Even through the exertion of his great powers he sought no immediate worldly advantages. To use his own words, he not only sacrificed all present prospects of wealth and advancement, but, in his inmost soul, stood aloof from temporary reputation. In the volume now before us, we behold the heart, as in his own works we have beheld the mind, of the man. And surely nothing can be more elevating, nothing more cheering than this contemplation, to one who has faith in the possible virtue, and pride in the possible dignity of mankind. The book is written, we believe, by one of the poet's most intimate friends—one too in whom we recognize a familiarity with the thoughts, and sympathy with the feelings of his subject. It consists of letters, conversations, and fragmentary recollections, interspersed with comment by the compiler, and dedicated to “Elizabeth and Robin, the Fairy Prattler, and still Meek Boy of the Letters.” The letters are by far the most valuable part of the compilation—although all is truly so. A portion of one of them we copy as affording a picture, never surpassed, of great mental power conscious of its greatness, and tranquilly submitting to the indignities of the world.

But enough of these generals. It was my purpose to open myself out to you in detail. My health, I have reason to believe, is so intimately connected with the state of my spirits, and these again so dependant on my thoughts, prospective and retrospective, that I should not doubt the being favored with a sufficiency for my noblest undertaking, had I the ease of heart requisite for the necessary abstraction of the thoughts, and such a reprieve from the goading of the immediate exigencies as might make tranquillity possible. But, alas! I know by experience (and the knowledge is not the less because the regret is not unmixed with self-blame, and the consciousness of want of exertion and fortitude,) that my health will continue to decline as long as the pain from reviewing the barrenness of the past is great in an inverse proportion to any rational anticipations of the future. As I now am, however, from five to six hours devoted to actual writing and composition in the day is the utmost that my strength, not to speak of my nervous system, will permit; and the invasions on this portion of my time from applications, often of the most senseless kind, are such and so many as to be almost as ludicrous even to myself as they are vexatious. In less than a week I have not seldom received half a dozen packets or parcels of works, printed or manuscript, urgently requesting my candid _judgment_, or my correcting hand. Add to these, letters from lords and ladies, urging me to write reviews or puffs of heaven-born geniuses, whose whole merit consists in being ploughmen or shoemakers. Ditto from actors; entreaties for money, or recommendations to publishers, from ushers out of place, &c. &c.; and to _me_, who have neither interest, influence, nor money, and, what is still more _àpropos_, can neither bring myself to tell smooth falsehoods nor harsh truths, and, in the struggle, too often do both in the anxiety to do neither. I have already the _written_ materials and contents, requiring only to be put together, from the loose papers and commonplace or memorandum books, and needing no other change, whether of omission, addition, or correction, than the mere act of arranging, and the opportunity of seeing the whole collectively bring with them of course,—I. Characteristics of Shakspeare's Dramatic Works, with a Critical Review of each Play; together with a relative and comparative Critique on the kind and degree of the Merits and Demerits of the Dramatic Works of Ben Johnson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger. The History of the English Drama; the accidental advantages it afforded to Shakspeare, without in the least detracting from the perfect originality or proper creation of the {452} Shakspearian Drama; the contradistinction of the latter from the Greek Drama, and its still remaining _uniqueness_, with the causes of this, from the combined influences of Shakspeare himself, as man, poet, philosopher, and finally, by conjunction of all these, dramatic poet; and of the age, events, manners, and state of the English language. This work, with every art of compression, amounts to three volumes of about five hundred pages each.—II. Philosophical Analysis of the Genius and Works of Dante, Spenser, Milton, Cervantes, and Calderon, with similar, but more compressed, Criticisms on Chaucer, Ariosto, Donne, Rabelais, and others, during the predominance of the Romantic Poetry. In one large volume. These two works will, I flatter myself, form a complete code of the principles of judgment and feeling applied to Works of Taste; and not of _Poetry_ only, but of Poesy in all its forms, Painting, Statuary, Music, &c. &c.—III. The History of Philosophy considered as a Tendency of the Human Mind to exhibit the Powers of the Human Reason, to discover by its own Strength the Origin and Laws of Man and the World, from Pythagoras to Locke and Condillac. Two volumes.—IV. Letters on the Old and New Testaments, and on the Doctrine and Principles held in common by the Fathers and Founders of the Reformation, addressed to a Candidate for Holy Orders; including Advice on the Plan and Subjects of Preaching, proper to a Minister of the Established Church.

To the completion of these four works I have literally nothing more to do than _to transcribe_; but as I before hinted, from so many scraps and _Sibylline_ leaves, including margins of books and blank pages, that, unfortunately, I must be my own scribe, and not done by myself, they will be all but lost; or perhaps (as has been too often the case already) furnish feathers for the caps of others; some for this purpose, and some to plume the arrows of detraction, to be let fly against the luckless bird from whom they had been plucked or moulted.

In addition to these—of my GREAT WORK, to the preparation of which more than twenty years of my life have been devoted, and on which my hopes of extensive and permanent utility, of fame, in the noblest sense of the word, mainly rest—that, by which I might,

“As now by thee, by all the good be known,
When this weak frame lies moulder'd in the grave,
Which self-surviving I might call my own,
Which Folly cannot mar, nor Hate deprave—
The incense of those powers, which, risen in flame,
Might make me dear to Him from whom they came.”

Of this work, to which all my other writings (unless I except my poems, and these I can exclude in part only) are introductory and preparative; and the result of which (if the premises be, as I, with the most tranquil assurance, am convinced they are—insubvertible, the deductions legitimate, and the conclusions commensurate, and only commensurate, with both,) must finally be a revolution of all that has been called _Philosophy_ or Metaphysics in England and France since the era of the commencing predominance of the mechanical system at the restoration of our second Charles, and with this the present fashionable views, not only of religion, morals, and politics, but even of the modern physics and physiology. You will not blame the earnestness of my expressions, nor the high importance which I attach to this work; for how, with less noble objects, and less faith in their attainment, could I stand acquitted of folly and abuse of time, talents, and learning, in a labor of three fourths of my _intellectual_ life? Of this work, something more than a volume has been dictated by me, so as to exist fit for the press, to my friend and enlightened pupil, Mr. Green; and more than as much again would have been evolved and delivered to paper, but that, for the last six or eight months, I have been compelled to break off our weekly meeting, from the necessity of writing (alas! alas! of _attempting_ to write) for purposes, and on the subjects of the passing day. Of my poetic works, I would fain finish the Christabel. Alas! for the proud time when I planned, when I had present to my mind the materials, as well as the scheme of the hymns entitled, Spirit, Sun, Earth, Air, Water, Fire, and Man; and the epic poem on—what still appears to me the one only fit subject remaining for an epic poem—Jerusalem besieged and destroyed by Titus.

And here comes my dear friend; here comes my sorrow and my weakness, my grievance and my confession. Anxious to perform the duties of the day arising out of the wants of the day, these wants, too, presenting themselves in the most painful of all forms,—that of a debt owing to those who will not exact it, and yet need its payment, and the delay, the long (not live-long but _death_-long) behindhand of my accounts to friends, whose utmost care and frugality on the one side, and industry on the other, the wife's management and the husband's assiduity are put in requisition to make both ends meet,—I am at once forbidden to attempt, and too perplexed earnestly to pursue, the _accomplishment_ of the works worthy of me, those I mean above enumerated,—even if, savagely as I have been injured by one of the two influensive Reviews, and with more effective enmity undermined by the utter silence or occasional detractive compliments of the other,[5] I had the probable chance of disposing of them to the booksellers, so as even to liquidate my mere boarding accounts during the time expended in the transcription, arrangement, and proof correction. And yet, on the other hand, my heart and mind are for ever recurring to them. Yes, my conscience forces me to plead guilty. I have only by fits and starts even prayed. I have not prevailed on myself to pray to God in sincerity and entireness for the fortitude that might enable me to resign myself to the abandonment of all my life's best hopes, to say boldly to myself,—“Gifted with powers confessedly above mediocrity, aided by an education, of which, no less from almost unexampled hardships and sufferings than from manifold and peculiar advantages, I have never yet found a parallel, I have devoted myself to a life of unintermitted reading, thinking, meditating, and observing. I have not only sacrificed all worldly prospects of wealth and advancement, but have in my inmost soul stood aloof from temporary reputation. In consequence of these toils and this self-dedication, I possess a calm and clear consciousness, that in many and most important departments of truth and beauty I have outstrode my contemporaries, those at least of highest name; that the number of my printed works bears witness that I have not been idle, and the seldom acknowledged, but strictly _proveable_, effects of my labors appropriated to the immediate welfare of my age in the Morning Post before and during the peace of Amiens, in the Courier afterward, and in the series and various subjects of my lectures at Bristol and at the Royal and Surrey Institutions, in Fetter Lane, at Willis's Rooms, and at the Crown and Anchor (add to which the unlimited freedom of my communications in colloquial life), may surely be allowed as evidence that I have not been useless in my generation. But, from circumstances, the _main_ portion of my harvest is still on the ground, ripe indeed, and only waiting, a few for the sickle, but a large part only for the _sheaving_, and carting, and housing, but from all this I must turn away, must let them rot as they lie, and be as though they never had been, for I must go and gather blackberries and earth-nuts, or pick mushrooms and gild oak-apples for the palates and fancies of chance customers. I must abrogate the name of philosopher and poet, and scribble as fast as I can, and with as little thought as I can, for Blackwood's Magazine, or, as I have been employed for the last days, in writing MS. sermons for lazy clergymen, who stipulate that the composition must not be more than respectable, for fear they should be desired to publish the visitation sermon!” This I have not yet had courage to do. My soul sickens and my heart sinks; {453} and thus, oscillating between both, I do neither, neither as it ought to be done, or to any profitable end. If I were to detail only the various, I might say capricious, interruptions that have prevented the finishing of this very scrawl, begun on the very day I received your last kind letter, you would need no other illustrations.

[Footnote 5: Neither my Literary Life, (2 vols.) nor Sibylline Leaves, (1 vol.) nor Friend, (3 vols.) nor Lay Sermons, nor Zapolya, nor Christabel, have ever been noticed by the Quarterly Review, of which Southey is yet the main support.]

Now I see but one possible plan of rescuing my permanent utility. It is briefly this, and plainly. For what we struggle with inwardly, we find at least easiest to _bolt out_, namely,—that of engaging from the circle of those who think respectfully and hope highly of my powers and attainments a yearly sum, for three or four years, adequate to my actual support, with such comforts and decencies of appearance as my health and habits have made necessaries, so that my mind may be unanxious as far as the present time is concerned; that thus I should stand both enabled and pledged to begin with some one work of these above mentioned, and for two thirds of my whole time to devote myself to this exclusively till finished, to take the chance of its success by the best mode of publication that would involve me in no risk, then to proceed with the next, and so on till the works above mentioned as already in full material existence should be reduced into formal and actual being; while in the remaining third of my time I might go on maturing and completing my great work (for if but easy in mind I have no doubt either of the reawakening power or of the kindling inclination,) and my Christabel, and what else the happier hour might inspire—and without inspiration a barrel-organ may be played right deftly; but

“All otherwise the state of _poet_ stands:
For lordly want is such a tyrant fell,
That where he rules all power he doth expel.
The vaunted verse a vacant head demands,
Ne wont with crabbed Care the muses dwell:
_Unwisely weaves who takes two webs in hand!_”

Now Mr. Green has offered to contribute from 30_l._ to 40_l._ yearly, for three or four years; my young friend and pupil, the son of one of my dearest old friends, 50_l._; and I think that from 10_l._ to 20_l._ I could rely upon from another. The sum required would be about 200_l._, to be repaid, of course, should the disposal or sale, and as far as the disposal and sale of my writings produced the means.

I have thus placed before you at large, wanderingly as well as diffusely, the statement which I am inclined to send in a compressed form to a few of those of whose kind dispositions towards me I have received assurances,—and to their interest and influence I must leave it—anxious, however, before I do this, to learn from you your very, very inmost feeling and judgment as to the previous questions. Am I entitled, have I earned _a right_ to do this? Can I do it without moral degradation? and, lastly, can it be done without loss of character in the eyes of my acquaintance, and of my friends' acquaintance, who may have been informed of the circumstances? That, if attempted at all, it will be attempted in such a way, and that such persons only will be spoken to, as will not expose me to indelicate rebuffs to be afterward matter of gossip, I know those to whom I shall entrust the statement, too well to be much alarmed about.

Pray let me either see or hear from you as soon as possible; for, indeed and indeed, it is no inconsiderable accession to the pleasure I anticipate from disembarrassment, that _you_ would have to contemplate in a more gracious form, and in a more ebullient play of the inward fountain, the mind and manners of,

My dear friend,
Your obliged and very affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.

It has always been a matter of wonder to us that the _Biographia Literaria_ here mentioned in the foot note has never been republished in America. It is, perhaps, the most deeply interesting of the prose writings of Coleridge, and affords a clearer view into his mental constitution than any other of his works. Why cannot some of our publishers undertake it? They would be rendering an important service to the cause of psychological science in America, by introducing a work of great scope and power in itself, and well calculated to do away with the generally received impression here entertained of the _mysticism_ of the writer.

COLTON'S NEW WORK.

_Thoughts on the Religious State of the Country; with Reasons for preferring Episcopacy. By Rev. Calvin Colton. New York: Harper & Brothers._

If we are to consider opinions of the press, when in perfect accordance throughout so wide a realm as the United States, as a fair criterion by which to estimate the opinions of the people, then it must be admitted that Mr. Colton's late work, “Four Years in Great Britain,” was received, in the author's native land at least, with universal approbation. We heard not a dissenting voice. The candor, especially—the good sense, the gentlemanly feeling, and the accurate and acute observation of the traveller, were the daily themes of high, and, we have no doubt, of well merited panegyric. Nor in any private circle, we believe, were the great merits of the work disputed. The book now before us, which bears the running title of “_Reasons for Episcopacy_,” is, it cannot be denied, a sufficiently well-written performance, in which is evident a degree of lucid arrangement, and simple perspicuous reason, not to be discovered, as a prevailing feature, in the volumes to which we have alluded. The _candor_ of the “_Four Years in Great Britain_,” is more particularly manifest in the “_Reasons for Episcopacy_.” What a lesson in dignified frankness, to say nothing of common sense, may the following passage afford to many a dunder-headed politician!

Inasmuch as it has been supposed by some, that the author of these pages has made certain demonstrations with his pen against that which he now adopts and advocates, it is not unlikely that his consistency will be brought in question. Admitting that he has manifested such an inclination, it can only be said, that he has changed his opinion, which it is in part the design of this book to set forth, with the reasons thereof. If he has written against, and in the conflict, or in any train of consequences, has been convinced that his former position was wrong, the least atonement he can make is to honor what he now regards as truth with a profession as public, and a defence as earnest, as any other doings of his on the other side. It is due to himself to say and to claim, that while he remained a Presbyterian he was an honest one; and it would be very strange if he had never done or said any thing to vindicate that ground. Doubtless he has. He may now be an equally honest Episcopalian; and charity would not require him to assert it.

But the truth is that Mr. Colton has been misunderstood. To be sure, he has frequently treated of the evils attending the existence and operation of the church establishment in England—the union of Church and State. He manifested deep sympathy for those who suffered under the oppression of this establishment, and even allowed himself to be carried so far (in some early communications on the subject which appeared in the columns of a New York weekly paper,) as to animadvert in unbecoming terms upon a class of British {454} clergymen, whose exemplary conduct deserved a more lenient treatment, but whose zeal for the Church of England blinded them to a sense of justice towards Dissenters, and induced them to oppose that just degree of reform which would have proved effectual in remedying the great causes of complaint. He contended, however, if we are not greatly in error, that total reform, to be safe, must be slow—that a separation at a single blow, could not be effected without great hazard to the public interest, and great derangement of private society.

It is even possible (and Mr. Colton himself admits the possibility) that, mingled up with these animadversions of which we speak, might have been some censures upon the Church itself. This was nothing more than natural in an honest and indignant man—an American too, who beheld the vices of the British Church Establishment. But it appears to us quite evident, that the strictures of the author (when considered as a whole and in their general bearing,) have reference to the character—not of the Church—but of the Church of England. Let us turn, for an exemplification of what we say, to his chapter on “The Church of England,” in the “_Four Years in Great Britain_.” This chapter consists principally of a collection of facts, tending to show the evils of a conjoined Church and State, and intended especially for the perusal of Americans. It is great injustice to confound what we find here, with an attack upon Episcopacy. Yet it seems to us, that this chapter has been repeatedly so misunderstood, by a set of people who are determined to understand every thing in their own particular fashion. “That Episcopacy,” says Mr. Colton, in vindicating himself from the charge adduced, “is the established Church of England is an accident. Presbyterianism is the established religion of Scotland and of some parts of the north of Europe. So was it of England under the Protectorate of Cromwell. No matter what had been the form of the established religion of Great Britain, in the same circumstances the results must have been substantially the same. It is not Episcopacy that has induced these evils, but the vicious and impracticable plan of uniting Church and State for the benefit of society.”

While in England Mr. Colton wrote and published a book on the subject of _Revivals_, and declared himself their advocate. In the fifth chapter of his present work he opposes them, and in the Preface alludes to his so doing, maintaining that these religious excitements are materially changed in their character. He speaks also of a chapter in a former work, entitled “_The Americans, by an American in England_”—a chapter devoted to the removal of aspersions cast in England upon the developments of religion in America. For some such defence it appears that he was called upon by friends. The effort itself was, as Mr. C. assures us, of the nature of an _apology_—neither attempting to recommend or establish any thing—and he thus excuses himself for apparent inconsistency in now declaring an opinion against the expediency of the practices which were scandalized.

The _Episcopacy_ of Mr. Colton will be read with pleasure and profit by all classes of the Christian community who admire perspicuity, liberality, frankness, and unprejudiced inquiry. It is not our purpose to speak of the general accuracy of his _data_, or the soundness of his deductions. In style the work appears to us excessively faulty—even uncouth.

MAURY'S NAVIGATION.

This volume, from an officer of our Navy, and a Virginian, strongly commends itself to notice. The works at present used by our navy and general marine, though in many respects not devoid of merit, have always struck us as faulty in two particulars. They aim at comprising a great multiplicity of details, many of which relate to matters only remotely bearing upon the main objects of the treatise—and they are deficient in that clearness of arrangement, without which, the numerous facts and formulæ composing the body of such works are little else than a mass of confusion. The extraction of the really useful rules and principles from the multifarious matters with which they are thus encumbered, is a task for which seamen are little likely to have either time or inclination, and it is therefore not surprising that our highly intelligent navy exhibits so many instances of imperfect knowledge upon points which are elementary and fundamental in the science of navigation.

We think that Mr. Maury has, to a considerable degree, avoided the errors referred to; and while his work comprises a sufficient and even copious statement of the rules and facts important to be known in the direction of a ship, he has succeeded, by a judicious arrangement of particulars and by clearly wrought numerical examples, in presenting them in a disembarrassed and very intelligible form. With great propriety he has rejected many statements and rules which in the progress of nautical science have fallen into disuse, and in his selection of methods of computation, has, in general, kept in view those modern improvements in this branch of practical mathematics in which simplicity and accuracy are most happily combined. Much attention to numerical correctness seems to pervade the work. Its style is concise without being obscure. The diagrams are selected with taste, and the engraving and typography, especially that of the tables, are worthy of the highest praise.

Such, we think, are the merits of the work before us—merits which, it must be admitted, are of the first importance in a book designed for a practical manual. To attain them required the exercise of a discriminating judgment, guided by a thorough acquaintance with all the points in nautical science which are of interest to seamen.

There are particulars in the work which we think objectionable, but they are of minor importance, and would probably be regarded as scarcely deserving criticism.

The spirit of literary improvement has been awakened among the officers of our gallant navy. We are pleased to see that science also is gaining votaries from its ranks. Hitherto how little have they improved the golden opportunities of knowledge which their distant voyages held forth, and how little have they enjoyed the rich banquet which nature spreads for them in every clime they visit! But the time is coming when, imbued with a taste for science and a spirit of research, they will become ardent explorers of the regions in which {455} they sojourn. Freighted with the knowledge which observation only can impart, and enriched with collections of objects precious to the student of nature, their return after the perils of a distant voyage will then be doubly joyful. The enthusiast in science will anxiously await their coming, and add his cordial welcome to the warm greetings of relatives and friends.

UPS AND DOWNS.

_Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman. By the author of “Tales and Sketches, such as they are.” New York: Leavitt, Lord & Co._

This book is a public imposition. It is a duodecimo volume, of the usual novel size, bound in the customary muslin cover with a gilt stamp on the back, and containing 225 pages of letter press. Its price, in the bookstores, is, we believe, a dollar. Although we are in the habit of reading with great deliberation, not unfrequently perusing individual passages more than two or three times, we were occupied _little better than one hour_ in getting through with the whole of the “_Ups and Downs_.” A full page of the book—that is, a page in which there are no breaks in the matter occasioned by paragraphs, or otherwise, embraces precisely 150 words—an average page about 130. A full page of this our Magazine, will be found to contain 1544 words—an average page about 1600, owing to the occasional notes in a smaller type than that generally used. It follows that nearly thirteen pages of such a volume as the “_Ups and Downs_” are required to make one of our own, and that in about fourteen pages such as we are writing, (if we consider the sixteen blank half-pages at the beginning of each chapter in the “_Ups and Downs_,” with the four pages of index) the whole of the one dollar duodecimo we are now called upon to review, might be laid conveniently before the public—in other words, that we could print nearly six of them in one of our ordinary numbers, (that for March for instance) the price of which is little more than forty cents. We give the amount of six such volumes then for forty cents—of one of them for very little more than a _fi'penny bit_. And as its price is a dollar, it is clear either that the matter of which the said “_Ups and Downs_” is composed, is sixteen times as good in quality as our own matter, and that of such Magazines in general, or that the author of the “_Ups and Downs_” supposes it so to be, or that the author of the “_Ups and Downs_” is unreasonable in his exactions upon the public, and is presuming very largely upon their excessive patience, gullibility, and good nature. We will take the liberty of analyzing the narrative, with a view of letting our readers see for themselves whether the author (or publisher) is quite right in estimating it at sixteen times the value of the ordinary run of compositions.

The volume commences with a Dedication “_To all Doating Parents_.” We then have four pages occupied with a content table, under the appellation of a “Bill of Lading.” This is well thought of. The future man of letters might, without some assistance of this nature, meet with no little trouble in searching for any particular chapter through so dense a mass of matter as the “_Ups and Downs_.” The “Introduction” fills four pages more, and in spite of the unjustifiable use of the word “_predicated_,” whose meaning is obviously misunderstood, is by much the best portion of the work—so much so, indeed, that we fancy it written by some kind, good-natured friend of the author. We now come to _Chapter I_, which proves to be Introduction the Second, and extends over seven pages farther. This is called “A Disquisition on Circles,” in which we are informed that “the motion produced by the _centripetal_ and _centrifugal_ forces, seems to be that of nature”—that “it is very true that the _periphery_ of the circles traversed by some objects is greater than that of others”—that “cast a stone into a lake or a mill-pond, and it will produce a succession of motions, circle following circle in order, and extending the radius until they disappear in the distance”—that “Time wings his flight in circles, and every year rolls round within itself”—that “the sun turns round upon his own axis, and the moon changes monthly”—that “the other celestial bodies all wheel their courses in circles around the common centre”—that “the moons of Jupiter revolve around him in circles, and he carries them along with him in his periodical circuit around the sun”—that “Saturn always moves within his rings”—that “a ship on the ocean, though apparently bounding over a plain of waters, rides in fact upon the circumference of a circle around the arch of the earth's diameter”—that “the lunar circle betokens a tempest”—that “those German principalities which are represented in the Diet are denominated circles”—and that “modern writers on pneumatics affirm every breeze that blows to be a whirlwind.”

But now commences the “_Ups and Downs_” in good earnest. The hero of the narrative is Mr. Wheelwright, and the author begs leave to assure the reader that Mr. W. is no fictitious personage, that “with the single abatement that names are changed, and places not precisely designated, every essential incident that he has recorded actually occurred, much as he has related it, to a person who, if not now living, certainly was once, and most of them under his own observation.”

_Chapter II_, treats of the birth and parentage of the hero. Mr. Daniel Wheelwright originally came from New Jersey, but resides at the opening of the story, in the beautiful valley of the Mohawk “on the banks of the river, and in a town alike celebrated for the taste of its people in architecture, and distinguished as a seat of learning.” He was early instructed by his father in the “elementary principles of his trade,” which was coach-making. “He was also taught in some branches of household carpentry work, which proved of no disadvantage to him in the end.” “Full of good nature he was always popular with the boys,” and we are told “was never so industrious as when manufacturing to their order little writing desks, fancy boxes, and other trifling articles not beyond the scope of his mechanical ingenuity.” We are also assured that the young gentleman was excessively fond of oysters.

In _Chapter III_, Daniel Wheelwright “grows up a tall and stately youth.” His mother “discovers a genius in him requiring only means and opportunity to wing an eagle-flight.” “An arrangement therefore is effected” by which our hero is sent to school to a “man whom the mother had previously known in New Jersey, and whose occupation was that of teaching young ideas how to shoot—not grouse and woodcock—but to shoot forth into scions of learning.” This is a new and excellent joke—but by no means so good as the one immediately {456} following, where we are told that “notwithstanding the natural indolence of his character, our hero knew that he must know something before he could enter college, and that in case of a failure, he must again cultivate more acquaintance with the _felloes_ of the shop than with the _fellows_ of the university.” He is sent to college, however, having “read _Cornelius Nepos_ and three books of the Æneid, thumbed over the Greek Grammar, and gone through the Gospel of St. John.”

_Chapter IV_, commences with two quotations from Shakspeare. Our hero is herein elected a member of the _Philo-Peithologicalethian Institute_, commences his debates with a “Mr. President, I _are_ in favor of the negative of that are question,” is “read off” at the close of every quarter, “advances one grade higher” in his classic course every year, and when about to take his degree, is “announced for a poem” in the _proces verbal_ of the commencement, and (one of the professors, if we comprehend, being called _Nott_) distinguishes himself by the following satirical verses—

The warrior fights, and dies for fame—
The empty glories of a name;—
But we who linger round this spot,
The warrior's guerdon covet Nott.

Nott for the miser's glittering heap
Within these walls is bartered sleep;
The humble scholar's quiet lot
With dreams of wealth is troubled Nott.

While poring o'er the midnight lamp,
In rooms too cold, and sometimes damp,
O man, who land and cash hast got,
Thy life of ease we envy Nott.

Our troubles here are light and few;—
An empty purse when bills fall due,
A locker, without e'er a shot,—
Hard recitations, or a Knot-

Ty problem, which we can't untie—
Our only shirt hung out to dry,—
A chum who never pays his scot,—
Such ills as these we value Nott.

O, cherished *****! learning's home,
Where'er the fates may bid us roam,
Though friends and kindred be forgot,
Be sure we shall forget thee Nott.

For years of peaceful, calm content,
To science and hard study lent,
Though others thy good name may blot,
T'were wondrous if we loved thee Nott.

For this happy effort he is admitted _ad gradum in artibus_, and thus closes chapter the fourth.

_Chapter V_, is also headed with two sentences from Shakspeare. The parents of Mr. W. are now inclined to make him a clergyman, being “not only conscientious people, but sincerely religious, and really desirous of doing good.” This project is dismissed, however, upon our hero's giving no evidence of piety, and Daniel is “entered in the office of an eminent medical gentleman, in one of the most beautiful cities which adorn the banks of the majestic Hudson.” Our author cannot be prevailed upon to state the precise place—but gives us another excellent joke by way of indemnification. “Although,” says he, “like Byron, I have no fear of being taken for the hero of my own tale, yet were I to bring matters too near their homes, but too many of the real characters of my narrative might be identified. Suffice it, then, to say of the location—_Ilium fuit_.” Daniel now becomes Doctor Wheelwright, reads the first chapter of _Cheselden's Anatomy_, visits New York, attends the lectures of Hosack and Post, “presses into his goblet the grapes of wisdom clustering around the tongue of Mitchill, and acquires the principles of surgery from the lips, and the skilful use of the knife from the untrembling hand, of Mott.”

At the close of his second year our hero, having completed only half of Cheselden's article on Osteology, relinquishes the study of medicine in despair, and turns merchant—purchasing “the odds and ends of a fashionable fancy and jobbing concern in Albany.” He is gulled however, by a confidential clerk, one John Smith, his store takes fire and burns down, and both himself and father, who indorsed for him, are ruined.

Mr. Wheelwright now retrieves his fortune by the accidental possession of a claim against government, taken by way of payment for a bad debt. But going to Washington to receive his money, he is inveigled into a lottery speculation—that is to say, he spends the whole amount of his claim in lottery-tickets—the manager fails—and our adventurer is again undone. This lottery adventure ends with the excellent joke that in regard to our hero there “were five _outs_ to one _in_, viz.—_out_ of money, and _out_ of clothes; _out_ at the heels, and _out_ at the toes; _out_ of credit and _in_ debt!” Mr. Wheelwright now returns to New York, and is thrown into prison by Messieurs Roe and Doe. In this emergency he sends for his friend the narrator, who, of course, relieves his distresses, and opens the doors of his jail.

_Chapter IX_, and indeed every ensuing chapter, commences with two sentences from Shakspeare. Mr. Wheelwright now becomes agent for a steamboat company on Lake George—but fortune still frowns, and the steamboat takes fire, and is burnt up, on the eve of her first trip, thus again ruining our hero.

“What a moment!” exclaims the author, “and what a spectacle for a lover of the ‘sublime and beautiful!’ Could Burke have visited such a scene of mingled magnificence, and grandeur and terror, what a vivid illustration would he not have added to his inimitable treatise on that subject! The fire raged with amazing fury and power—stimulated to madness, as it were, by the pitch and tar and dried timbers, and other combustible materials used in the construction of the boat. The nightbird screamed in terror, and the beasts of prey fled in wild affright into the deep and visible darkness beyond. This is truly a gloomy place for a lone person to stand in of a dark night—particularly if he has a touch of superstition. There have been fierce conflicts on this spot—sieges and battles and fearful massacres. Here hath mailed Mars sat on his altar, up to his ears in blood, smiling grimly at the music of echoing cannons, the shrill trump, and all the rude din of arms, until like the waters of Egypt, the lake became red as the crimson flowers that blossom upon its margin!” At the word margin is the following explanatory note. “_Lobelia Cardinalis_, commonly called the _Indian Eye-bright_. It is a beautiful blossom, and is frequently met with in this region. The writer has seen large clusters of it blooming upon the margin of the ‘Bloody Pond’ in this neighborhood—so called from the circumstance of the slain being thrown into this pond, after the defeat of Baron Dieskau, by Sir William Johnson. The ancients would have constructed a beautiful legend from this incident, and sanctified the sanguinary flower.”

In _Chapter X_, Mr. Wheelwright marries an heiress—a rich widow worth thirty thousand pound sterling in prospectu—in _Chapter XI_, sets up a _Philomathian Institute_, the whole of the chapter being occupied with his {457} advertisement—in _Chapter XII_, his wife affronts the scholars, by “swearing by the powers she would be afther clearing them out—the spalpeens!—that's what she would, honies!” The school is broken up in consequence, and Mrs. Wheelwright herself turns out to be nothing more than “one of the unmarried wives of the lamented Captain Scarlett,” the legal representatives being in secure possession of the thirty thousand pounds sterling in prospectu.

In _Chapter XIII_, Mr. Wheelwright is again in distress, and applies, of course, to the humane author of the “_Ups and Downs_,” who gives him, we are assured, “an overcoat, and a little basket of provisions.” In _Chapter XIV_, the author continues his benevolence—gives a crow, (_cock-a-doodle doo!_) and concludes with “there _is_ no more charitable people than those of New York!” which means when translated into good English—“there never was a more charitable man than the wise and learned author of the ‘_Ups and Downs_.’”

_Chapter XV_, is in a somewhat better vein, and embraces some tolerable incidents in relation to the pawnbrokers' shops of New York. We give an extract—believing it to be one of the best passages in the book.

To one who would study human nature, especially in its darker features, there is no better field of observation than among these pawn-brokers' shops.

In a frequented establishment, each day unfolds an ample catalogue of sorrow, misery, and guilt, developed in forms and combinations almost innumerable; and if the history of each customer could be known, the result would be such a catalogue as would scarcely be surpassed, even by the records of a police-office or a prison. Even my brief stay while arranging for the redemption of Dr. Wheelwright's personals, afforded materials, as indicated in the last chapter, for much and painful meditation.

I had scarcely made my business known, at the first of “my uncle's” establishments to which I had been directed, when a middle-aged man entered with a bundle, on which he asked a small advance, and which, on being opened, was found to contain a shawl and two or three other articles of female apparel. The man was stout and sturdy, and, as I judged from his appearance, a mechanic; but the mark of the destroyer was on his bloated countenance, and in his heavy, stupid eyes. Intemperance had marked him for his own. The pawn-broker was yet examining the offered pledge, when a woman, whose pale face and attenuated form bespoke long and intimate acquaintance with sorrow, came hastily into the shop, and with the single exclamation, “O, Robert!” darted, rather than ran, to that part of the counter where the man was standing. Words were not wanted to explain her story. Her miserable husband, not satisfied with wasting his own earnings, and leaving her to starve with her children, had descended to the meanness of plundering even her scanty wardrobe, and the pittance for the obtaining of which this robbery would furnish means, was destined to be squandered at the tippling-house. A blush of shame arose even upon his degraded face, but it quickly passed away; the brutal appetite prevailed, and the better feeling that had apparently stirred within him for the moment, soon gave way before its diseased and insatiate cravings.

“Go home,” was his harsh and angry exclamation; “what brings you here, running after me with your everlasting scolding? go home, and mind your own business.”

“O Robert, dear Robert!” answered the unhappy wife, “don't pawn my shawl. Our children are crying for bread, and I have none to give them. Or let me have the money; it is hard to part with that shawl, for it was my mother's gift; but I will let it go, rather than see my children starve. Give me the money, Robert, and don't leave us to perish.”

I watched the face of the pawn-broker to see what effect this appeal would have upon him, but I watched in vain. He was hardened to distress, and had no sympathy to throw away. “Twelve shillings on these things,” he said, tossing them back to the drunkard, with a look of perfect indifference.

“Only twelve shillings!” murmured the heart-broken wife, in a tone of despair. “O Robert, don't let them go for twelve shillings. Let me try some where else.”

“Nonsense,” answered the brute. “It's as much as they're worth, I suppose. Here, Mr. Crimp, give us the change.”

The money was placed before him, and the bundle consigned to a drawer. The poor woman reached forth her hand toward the silver, but the movement was anticipated by her husband. “There Mary,” he said, giving her half a dollar, “there, go home now, and don't make a fuss. I'm going a little way up the street, and perhaps I'll bring you something from market, when I come home.”

The hopeless look of the poor woman, as she meekly turned to the door, told plainly enough how little she trusted to this ambiguous promise. They went on their way, she to her famishing children, and he to squander the dollar he had retained, at the next den of intemperance.

_Chapter XVI_, is entitled the “end of this eventful history.” Mr. Wheelwright is rescued from the hands of the watch by the author of the “_Ups and Downs_”—turns his wife, very justly, out of doors—and finally returns to his parental occupation of coach-making.

We have given the entire pith and marrow of the book. The term _flat_, is the only general expression which would apply to it. It is written, we believe, by Col. Stone of the New York Commercial Advertiser, and should have been printed among the quack advertisements, in a spare corner of his paper.

WATKINS TOTTLE.

_Watkins Tottle, and other Sketches, illustrative of every-day Life, and every-day People. By Boz. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and Blanchard._

This book is a re-publication from the English original, and many of its sketches are with us old and highly esteemed acquaintances. In regard to their author we know nothing more than that he is a far more pungent, more witty, and better disciplined writer of sly articles, than nine-tenths of the Magazine writers in Great Britain—which is saying much, it must be allowed, when we consider the great variety of genuine talent, and earnest application brought to bear upon the periodical literature of the mother country.

The very first passage in the volumes before us, will convince any of our friends who are knowing in the requisites of “a good thing,” that we are doing our friend Boz no more than the simplest species of justice. Hearken to what he says of Matrimony and of Mr. Watkins Tottle.

Matrimony is proverbially a serious undertaking. Like an overweening predilection for brandy and water, it is a misfortune into which a man easily falls, and from which he finds it remarkably difficult to extricate himself. It is no use telling a man who is timorous on these points, that it is but one plunge and all is over. They say the same thing at the Old Bailey, and the unfortunate victims derive about as much comfort from the assurance in the one case as in the other.

{458} Mr. Watkins Tottle was a rather uncommon compound of strong uxorious inclinations, and an unparalleled degree of anti-connubial timidity. He was about fifty years of age; stood four feet six inches and three quarters in his socks—for he never stood in stockings at all—plump, clean and rosy. He looked something like a vignette to one of Richardson's novels, and had a clean cravatish formality of manner, and kitchen-pokerness of carriage, which Sir Charles Grandison himself might have envied. He lived on an annuity, which was well adapted to the individual who received it in one respect—it was rather small. He received it in periodical payments on every alternate Monday; but he ran himself out about a day after the expiration of the first week, as regularly as an eight-day clock, and then, to make the comparison complete, his landlady wound him up, and he went on with a regular tick.

It is not every one who can put “a good thing” properly together, although, perhaps, when thus properly put together, every tenth person you meet with may be capable of both conceiving and appreciating it. We cannot bring ourselves to believe that less actual ability is required in the composition of a really good “brief article,” than in a fashionable novel of the usual dimensions. The novel certainly requires what is denominated a sustained effort—but this is a matter of mere perseverance, and has but a collateral relation to talent. On the other hand—unity of effect, a quality not easily appreciated or indeed comprehended by an ordinary mind, and a _desideratum_ difficult of attainment, even by those who can conceive it—is indispensable in the “brief article,” and not so in the common novel. The latter, if admired at all, is admired for its detached passages, without reference to the work as a whole—or without reference to any general design—which, if it even exist in some measure, will be found to have occupied but little of the writer's attention, and cannot, from the length of the narrative, be taken in at one view, by the reader.

The Sketches by Boz are all exceedingly well managed, and never fail to _tell_ as the author intended. They are entitled, Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle—The Black Veil—Shabby Genteel People—Horatio Sparkins—The Pawnbroker's Shop—The Dancing Academy—Early Coaches—The River—Private Theatres—The Great Winglebury Duel—Omnibuses—Mrs. Joseph Porter—The Steam Excursion—Sentiment—The Parish—Miss Evans and the Eagle—Shops and their Tenants—Thoughts about People—A Visit to Newgate—London Recreations—The Boarding-House—Hackney-Coach Stands—Brokers and Marine Store-Shops—The Bloomsbury Christening—Gin Shops—Public Dinners—Astley's—Greenwich Fair—The Prisoner's Van—and A Christmas Dinner. The reader who has been so fortunate as to have perused any one of these pieces, will be fully aware of how great a fund of racy entertainment is included in the Bill of Fare we have given. There are here some as well conceived and well written papers as can be found in any other collection of the kind—many of them we would especially recommend, as a study, to those who turn their attention to Magazine writing—a department in which, generally, the English as far excel us as Hyperion a Satyr.