nevolent solicitude for their higher interests. | within his own line of things. In every-day matters too high for him. His mind was not naturally designed to master such difficulties; nor were his habits those of profound, continuous, abstract thinking. He was neither Joseph Butler, nor Jonathan Edwards, nor William de Leibnitz, but the Isaac Watts, whom the most of good men would have rather been; and it is no reproach to his general ability to say that he failed to ascend those dizzy altitudes, although it might have been more to the credit of his prudence if he had never tried. In his theological disquisitions, Dr. Watts was not so successful as in his contributions to Christian literature. The best of his hymns leave little for the most fastidious to censure, and nothing for the most aspiring to hope; and his sermon on "The End of Time," is as profoundly awakening as "The. Happiness of separate Spirits " is elevating to If rightly told, a life like that of Isaac our nobler sentiments and reproving to our Watts would read great lessons; but, for earthliness. But when he quitted the devo- brevity, and notwithstanding the exception tional and the practical for the speculative, we have just taken, the whole might be conhe was away from home. Every one wants densed into-" Study to be quiet, and to do to climb a mountain, and it is exceedingly your own business. Dr. Watts had his difficult to believe beforehand that it needs own convictions. He made no secret of his much strength to achieve the task, or that Nonconformity. At a period when many mists can be very dangerous; it looks so Dissenters entered the Church, and became clear from below, and we feel so strong in distinguished dignitaries, he deemed it his the valley. And all of us can remember duty still to continue outside of the National how, in the days of our youth, the first use Establishment. At the same time, he was we made of our Aristotelian alpenstock, was no agitator. He felt no call to rail at his an attempt to ascend some metaphysical Mont brethren for their ecclesiastical defection, nor Blanc or theological Jungfrau; and although did he write pamphlets against the evils of a we cannot exactly say that we reached the hierarchy, real or imagined. But God had summit, yet we are sure that we were a given him a "business." He had given great deal higher than the Origin of Evil, or him, as his vocation, to join together those the water-shed betwixt Liberty and Necessi- whom men had put asunder-mental culture ty. Even to old age, Dr. Watts felt some- and vital piety. And, studying to be quiet, thing of this temptation, and very naturally. he pursued that calling, very diligently, very His forte was explanation. He had an ad-successfully. Without concealing the pecumirable faculty of clearing up confusion, liar doctrines of the Gospel, without losing the fervor of his personal devotion, he The merits of Watts' Logic are admirably stated by Tissot of Dijon, in his preface to a French gained for that Gospel the homage of genius translation. (Paris, 1846). "Il y a aussi plus de and intelligence: and, like the King of Isméthode et de clarté peut-être dans la Logique de Watts que dans celle d'Arnaul. Le bon sens An-rael, he touched his harp so skilfully, glais, le sens des affaires, celui de la vie pratique, many who hardly understood the words, were s'y révèle à un très-haut degré; tandis que le sens melted by the tune. Without surrendering spéculatif d'un théologien passablement scolastique encore, est plus sensible dans l'Art de penser. Or his right of private judgment, without abjurWatts a su être complet sans être excessif; il a ing his love of natural and artistic beauty, he touché très-convenablement tout ce qui devait showed his preference for moral excellence, l'être, et s'est toujours arrêté au point précis où plus de profondeur aurait pu nuire à la clarté." his intense conviction of "the truth as it is that in Jesus." And now, in his well-arranged ates him, Nonconformity cannot monopolize and tasteful study, decorated by his own pen- him. His eloge is pronounced by Samuel Johnson and Robert Southey, as well as Josiah Conder; and whilst his monument looks down on Dissenting graves in Abney Park, cil, a lute and a telescope on the same table with his Bible, he seems to stand before us, a treatise on Logic in one hand and a volume of " Hymns and Spiritual Songs' " in the his effigy reposes beneath the consecrated other, asserting the harmony of Faith and roof of Westminster Abbey. And, which is Reason, and pleading for Religion and Refine- far better, next Lord's day, the Name that ment in firm and stable union. And as far is above every other name, will be sung in as the approval of the Most High can be fanes where princes worship and prelates gathered from events or from its reflection in minister, as well as in barns where mechanthe conscience of mankind, the Master has ics pray and ragged scholars say Amen, in said, "Well done, good and faithful ser- words for which all alike must thank his vant." Without trimming, without tem- hallowed genius; and it will only be some porizing, he was "quiet; and without curious student of hymnology, who will recbustle, without boasting or parade, he did ollect that Isaac Watts is the Asaph of each "his own business," the work that God had choir, and the leader of each company. given him. And now, no Church repudi BOSTON, August 10th, 1857. To the Editors of the Journal of Commerce, New York. SIRS :-In answer to your remark of the 7th inst., upon the call for a National Emancipation Convention, I pray you suffer me a few words. It is not likely that this Convention will enter into any details as to the manner and time when such compensated Emancipation shall be carried into effect. The whole matter can only be done by the wisdom of each State for itself;-and may vary just as much as the circumstances of each State may, in its own opinion, require. One State may decree that after a certain day Slavery shall cease: another may decree that all children hereafter born shall be free: another, that every slave who wishes it shall be appraised, and that one day in the week he shall work for his own profit on paying one sixth of such appraised value, and be at liberty to buy another day at the same rate whenever he can. This, I believe is the Spanish plan. |dition (especially where millions of servants and masters are concerned) would be an evil to every interest. The question can only be happily solved if entered upon in the fear of God-with great humility, patience and long suffering. We can see but a little way,-let us walk with watchfulness, and with a single eye to the great good of all concerned. I am happy to say that since Mr. Burritt has agitated this question, I have not met with one Northern man unwilling that the North shall bear its share of the burden;-or with one who would not rejoice in the influx of labor, capital and wealth, which would at once result to our Southern bretheren: Brethren again in heart, as well as in law. Writing without communication with other persons, I can only speak for E. LITTELL. OUR OLD PSALTER TUNES.-The first edition of the Metrical Psalms, by Sternhold and Hop- The whole affair may very likely be too great to be accomplished soon, or completely. But "where there is a will, there is a way"-and we desire, first, to awaken the conscience of the North to a sense of its share in the evil, and its duty to make sacrifices to get rid of it ;-and secondly, to gain the confidence of men of property in the South in the hearty co-operation of the great body of the North in any wise, far- DARK SPOTS IN MARBLE.-Have dark spots or reaching scheme to effect the object in view, specks been known to show themselves on the which may be devised and brought forward by surface of white marble even when the blocks Southern statesmen. have been chosen for their purity and the clearTo me it seems that the great mass of the col-ness of the grain? Did any such defects exist ored people will, for generations at least, con- in Canova's "Venus," in the Pitti Palace, tinue to be laborers where their labor is most Florence, when it was sculptured? A black profitable and where they are individually known streak now falls across the bosom. Some years to the communities in which they live; and that since scarcely a mark was visible. all sudden and violent changes of place and con--Notes and Queries. From The Dublin University Magazine. SCARCE fifteen furlongs from the city-gate, What spirit that whilom wont with viewless wing Angelical, on ancient Olivet, Temper the sultry wind of midsummer For the pale forehead of the Son of Man, Beneath the summer sky? No home, methinks, white rose Worn in the night-dark hair of goddess old. East Is well content to entertain the hours- The greybeard leech From the great city saith the silver dew Besprent no sovereign weed, whose virtuous balm Could heal the waters in that bowl of life. For Death was in the spring. Then Martha's grief, Like low hung clouds that weep themselves away, Well'd out in tears; but Mary's, like a flower Of Mary's sorrow. Let them send and tell then Slowly Their thoughts orb'd out into a greater thought Of one that sleepeth, with his casement fronting The daylight on the pane, when night and day Edging with gold the white froth of the tide Thy locks are wet with the heavy dews of night; Thine eyes, that have outwatched the warder O Divine Friend! we know the world hath need The weary world that lies in wickedness- rise Unto Thy God and Father. They have risen. Yea, when the storm hath hid the mountain tops, And the lightning darted, like a fiery snake, What time the white moon between chasmed clouds, Rush'd, like Thy sail between the beetling crags A shadow, with their feeble human words And passionless thought. But fairer far than it, Thou, nightly pleading-better than the breath And so the Saviour came, Was starr'd with homely primroses of love; A baby's radiant brow-they send for Him. Each after each, and the white curtain hangs And bid the white bones flourish as the grass. I would feel obliged if MR. HENRY STEVENS, or any of your readers, would endeavor to give some minuter evidence of Sir Francis Drake's claim to the aforesaid honor. THE POTATO "PARENT STOCK."-Sir Walter | their qualities by cultivation and "too much Raleigh is generally believed to have planted at forcing; " being consequently "far less hardy" Youghall, in July, 1586-7, the first potatoes than the parent stock. grown in the British empire; and "from these few, this country was furnished with seed." This was on the return of Sir Walter's expedition, for which the patent passed the Great Seal in 1584. Heriot, a scientific man, who accompanied the expedition, describes, under the head-Notes and Queries. of Roots," those called in Virginia, 66 Open awk," which are "round, some as large as a RICHARD SAVAGE.-Was Savage an imposter, a walnut, others much larger," (Sir Joseph or was he really the son of the Countess of MacBanks; Hall's Ireland, p. 80.) But although clesfield, as he represented himself? He said all this be true, the honor of first introducing this"root" into England belongs to Admiral Sir Francis Drake, who brought them, amongst other rare exotics, from the wilds of South America, on his return expedition, after circumnavigating the globe, in 1580, seven years prior to Sir Walter Raleigh's return expedition. It has, however, been asserted that the potato, celebrated in the Elizabethan age, "is not the same root as that now commonly known by the name." I opine that, if "not the same root," the present potatoes are the decendants of that "parent stock," though undoubtedly changed in that he discovered that he was the son of that lady from letters which he found among the effects of his nurse (whom he had always regarded as his mother) at her death. Sir John Hawkins says that he was an imposter, and that his own tale, which Johnson repeats, was sufficient to prove him so. No writer, as far as I know, has echoed the opinion of the knight; but is it cer tain that there is no ground for such an opinion? Is it apparent, from any quarter, that any trustworthy person saw the papers which Savage said that he found? or does the story of his birth rest entirely on Savage's own statement?-Notes and Queries. PART II.-CHAPTER V. Miss Townley's entrance to dispense the Ir was half-past nine o'clock in the morning. The midsummer sun was already warm on the roofs and weathercocks of Millby. The church-bells were ringing, and many families were conscious of Sunday sensations, chiefly referable to the fact that the daughters had come down to breakfast in their best frocks, and with their hair particularly well dressed. For it was not Sunday but Wednesday; and though the Bishop was going to hold a Confirmation, and to decide whether or not there should be a Sunday-evening lecture in Millby, the sunbeams had the usual working-day look to the haymakers already long out in the fields, and to The only other candidate for confirmation laggard weavers just "setting up "their at Miss Townley's was Mary Dunn, a week's "piece." The notion of its being draper's daughter in Millby, and a distant Sunday was the strongest in young ladies relation of the Miss Linnets. Her pale like Miss Phipps, who was going to accom- lanky hair could never be coaxed into permapany her younger sister to the confirmation, nent curl, and this morning the heat had and to wear a sweetly pretty transparent brought it down to its natural condition of bonnet with marabout feathers on the inter- lankiness earlier than usual. But that was esting occasion, thus throwing into relief the not what made her sit melancholy and apart suitable simplicity of her sister's attire, who at the lower end of the form. Her parents was, of course, to appear in a new white were admirers of Mr. Tryan, and had been frock; or in the pupils at Miss Townley's, persuaded, by the Miss Linnets' influence, to who were absolved from all lessons, and insist that their daughter should be prepared were going to church to see the Bishop, and for confirmation by him, over and above the to hear the Honorable and Reverend Mr. preparation given to Miss Townley's pupils Prendergast, the rector, read prayers-a by Mr. Crewe. Poor Mary Dunn! I am high intellectual treat, as Miss Townley afraid she thought it too heavy a price to assured them. It seemed only natural that pay for these spiritual advantages, to be a rector, who was honorable, should read excluded from every game at ball, to be better than old Mr. Crewe, who was only a obliged to walk with none but little girlscurate, and not honorable; and when little in fact, to be the object af an aversion that Clara Robins wondered why some clergymen nothing short of an incessant supply of were rectors and others not, Ellen Marriott plumcakes would have neutralized. And assured her with great confidence that it Mrs. Dunn was of opinion that plumcake was only the clever men who were made was unwholesome. The anti-Tryanite spirit, rectors. Ellen Marriott was going to be you perceive was very strong at Miss Townconfirmed. She was a short, fair, plump ley's, imported probably by day scholars, as girl, with blue eyes and sandy hair, which well as encouraged by the fact that that was this morning arranged in taller cannon clever woman was herself strongly opposed curls than usual, for the reception of the to innovation, and remarked every Sunday Episcopal benediction, and some of the that Mr. Crewe had preached an "excellent young ladies thought her the prettiest girl discourse." Poor Mary Dunn dreaded the in school; but others gave the preference to moment when school-hours would be over, her rival, Maria Gardner, who was much for then she was sure to be the butt of those taller, and had a lovely "crop "of dark- very explicit remarks which, in young ladies' brown ringlets, and who, being also about to as well as young gentlemen's seminaries, take upon herself the vows made in her constitute the most subtle-and delicate form name at her baptism, had oiled and twisted of the innuendo. "I'd never be a Tryanite, her ringlets with especial care. As she would you ?" "O here comes the lady that seated herself at the breakfast-table before knows so much more about religion than we |