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Then come relentings. Hippolita is moved to tears. Clodio yields, also, and swears solemnly to destroy the barbarous "custom of the country," which has been the cause of all these mishaps. Then Hippolita, finding that Zenoccia and Arnaldo are perishing together, compels the poisoner to administer an antidote, and so undo the deadly charm.

We are next presented to Guiomar, waiting the arrival of her suitor, (Rutilio.) This is a splendid scene, and that part of Rutilio's character which is redeemed from his vices, is here exhibited with great spirit. Duarte attends him, still disguised. Rutilio is seized by Guiomar's orders, as the murderer of her son. Enter the Governor and Clodio, and Rutilio proposes to yield himself a willing sacrifice upon the altar of maternal revenge. Hereupon, Duarte makes himself known, and so

"The evening sets clear after the stormy day!" Hippolita restores Zenoccia to health, and then smiles upon the patient and faithful Leopold. Guiomar sees no special objections in Rutilio, upon the whole, (though, I think, touching his morals, it suited so grave a personage as that high dame, to make an inquiry or two, just to save appearances, if nothing more!) Every body is reformed, who was bad; every body revived who was dead; and every body who was single, is married! And what does Arnaldo, but close the play, (as with good reason he should,) with these fine lines?

"Come, my Zenoccia!

Our bark, at length, has found a quiet harbor,
And the unspotted progress of our loves

Ends not alone in safety, but reward;

We instruct others by our fair example:

That though good purposes are long withstood,

The hand of Heaven still guides such, as are good!"

The play we have been reading, dear lector, together, is certainly one of the finest specimens of dramatic poetry in the language, and I sincerely hope you have found entertainment in its perusal. But I think you will find the poetry of "Valentinian," a tragedy, with Fletcher's name only affixed thereto, equally to your liking. If you will permit me, therefore, I will now go on with my "unpacking," in the meanwhile laying these volumes aside, in readiness to be resumed for the next number of these papers.

So, adieu for another month! New York, September 1, 1839.

BEAUTIFUL EXTRACT.

From Gallagher's Hesperian.

J. F. O.

Young womanhood!-"the sweet moon on the horizon's verge"-a thought matured, but not uttered-a conception warm and glowing, not yet embodied-the rich halo which precedes the rising sun-the rosy down that bespeaks the ripening peach-a flower

"A flower which is not quite a flower,
Yet is no more a bud!"

EXTRACTS

From a Poem "On the Meditation of Nature." BY PARK BENJAMIN.

INTRODUCTION.

Of Nature's pure philosophy I sing:And my entire devotion and the flame of quenchless love upon her altar fling;

For she has ever been to me the same Unchanging parent, generous and kind; And all its better nourishment my mind Draws from her bosom, and my heart would be Cold as an iceberg of the northern sea, If, when I gaze on her undying forms, I did not speak the gratitude which warms The flowing water of its deepest fountains. Her quiet vales and her majestic mountains, Her angry seas, that struggle with the wrath Of the fierce Tempest, rushing from the sky To rend the earth in his destructive path, Or flash revenge from his dark shrouded eye,— Her still lakes, sleeping in the starlight beams, Her warring cataracts, her peaceful streams, The boundless prairie where the eagle soars, The solemn grandeur of her ancient woods, The haggard rocks that guard her bending shores, Her green retreats and leafy solitudes, All fill my soul with reverential awe; For every where I read the changeless law That tells its immortality!

INVOCATION.

Let us go forth and hold communion sweet
With the invisible spirit that surrounds
Earth's silent altars-let us go forth to greet

The woven strains of most enchanting sounds That stir the clear waves of the golden air; Let us go forth and mutely worship there! From life's unvarying round, oh let us steal

Some fleeting moments we may call our own, When, unrestrained, the heart can deeply feel The quiet happiness to be alone. Alone with Nature in some voiceless glen, Or by some forest brook, or on the height Of some uprising hill-away from men, The city's busy tumult and the sight Of all the sons of pleasure and of pain, Where the free soul must feel its human chain. Then, if within our hearts reflected lie The perfect glories of the earth and sky, If every feeling they inspire be fraught With the pure essence of exalted thought, Well may we deem, that round each bosom's throne Float the white robes of Innocence alone!

SKEPTICISM.

The man, who cannot see the light divine Which circles round Creation's altar-shrine, Can, through his tureless spirit, never feel The magic sweetness of her spirit steal:

And though upon the sapphire arch above Glowed the bright beacons of eternal love, Vain, vain would be our ardent search to find One star-beam mirrored on the skeptic's mind!

THE SUN.

Behold the Sun in his imperial height,

Beneath his eye uncounted planets layWide o'er creation pours his lavish light; From the beginning he has ruled the day. How kingly is his sceptre! see him wave

Its lustre o'er the firmament-and where Fly the wild tempest-clouds? deep in a grave Of rosy vapor sinks th' expiring air, And o'er the east the rainbow's arch is thrown, While sinks the Day-god, gorgeous and alone! There's glory in his setting-but the time, When, like a monarch, from his throne sublime He gazes o'er the world in mightiest power, Is in the silence of his rising hour. On all alike his equal radiance streams; The humblest flower receives his earliest beams, The smallest fountain revels in his ray, Beneath his glance old ocean's billows play; His smiles upon the lowliest valley rest, And proudly glisten on the mountain's crest; He looks as sweetly on the cottage home As on the splendor of a regal dome; And each faint star, that gems the distant sky, Drinks the full lustre of his glorious eye!

THE STARS.

Oh, when to rest the wearied day retires,
How, on God's temple, burn the unwasting fires!
Pure, soft and still, each in its own blue sphere,
As when at first the mighty Maker framed
The bending arch, and bade its gleams appear
Where the great sun had through the ether flamed.
For ever beautiful! for ever bright!

What is your hidden mystery? do ye stream
From the clear fountains of celestial light,

And each to earth display a broken gleam
Of Heaven's immortal glory? are ye strown
Along the borders of that fadeless shore,
Which lies beyond those depths unseen, unknown,
To light the course of angel-plumes, that soar
High through your rainbow-colored atmosphere ?
Or are ye brilliant melodies--embodied forms
Of thrilling sound made so divinely clear-
Bright tones from lips that inspiration warms?
Or, as such perfect loveliness ye fling,

With hope and joy the spirit to inspire,
Are ye not glimpses of those chords that string,
In glittering order, Heaven's melodious lyre?

THE SEA.

On the free waters let your vision dwell;
See how they flash beneath the golden ray!
Hark, how they murmur--as their surging swell
Breaks at your feet and slowly rolls away!
Like nodding plumes and helms and glistening spears,
The serried waves come rushing o'er the main;

Then, like a host, subdued by sudden fears,
They scatter brokenly to charge again!
Where the horizon meets the glimmering sea,
What fragile mists are floating!-Look once more!
A sail! a sail! and yet it cannot be-

'Tis but a sea-bird that doth lightly soar;
And where yon billows, like strown diamonds, gleam,
I soon shall hear his shrill, rejoicing scream!
And can such radiant beauty ever wear

The shadow of the tempest? Will its proud And vengeful rider, in deep midnight tear

The folded blackness of the thunder-cloud,Unchain his lightnings and arouse these waves, Which now are whispering to the peaceful deep Or calmly resting in their hidden caves,

To leap like lions startled from their sleep?
The whirlwinds wrestle and the billows rage,
And yet God holds them in his hollow palm;
He frowneth war-in conflict they engage:-
He smileth peace-and lo! there is a calm.
CHANGE.

Change-change—the fate of each created thing!
Change, swift and constant change, the seasons bring.
Mark how they change!--upon the Summer's brow
Twine clustering wreaths of golden-crested grain,
The ripened fruit drops slowly from the bough,
Stirred by the gale that breathes along the plain.
Then bounteous Autumn yields her liberal stores,
The tired laborer to bless and cheer,
And from her lap in glad profusion pours

Her copious gifts to crown the perfect year.
Then are the leaves all tinged with vermeil dyes,
And withering fall upon the faded grass,
And o'er the azure of the changing skies
Pale fleeting mist and drifting vapor pass.
Stern Winter comes to scatter over earth

High crests of snow and jewels icy-cold;
And manhood seeks his dear, domestic hearth,
Where glow affections which are never old.
Then Spring, with all her bird-like melodies,
And rose-leaves twined 'mid her dishevelled hair,
Stirs the young foliage of the forest trees,

And with soft radiance paints the stilly air.
And there are lesser changes-Heaven is pure
To-day--no scattered mists its smiles obscure-
To-morrow comes--and one continual cloud
Throws o'er the green earth an unbroken shroud--
To-day we taste the morning's dewy breath,
To-morrow brings disease, and pain, and death--
To-day we drink the blushing cup of health,
And see its waters sparkling soft and clear;
To-morrow comes the pestilence by stealth,
Robed in thick darkness, heralded by fear!

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OH! PITY THE STRANGER.

Written by a Young Lady on her return from Ireland.
Oh! pity the stranger, whoever he be,

Who wanders from home o'er the dark rolling sea;
For sad is his heart, while around you there's mirth
In each smiling face which enlivens your hearth.

As you value the blessings which smile round you now,
Oh! mock not the sadness which rests on his brow!
For how can he join in your revel and song
While his sorrowing thoughts to the absent belong?

Oh! speak no light word of reproach when he weeps,
Nor rudely disturb his repose when he sleeps-
For you know not how dear to that lone heart may be,
The dream which restores him his home o'er the sea!

I was far-far from home-and my heart was so sad,
That it scarcely remembered it ever was glad;
For lost faces of friends, and their tones of delight
Were lingering around me by day and by night,

I have trod the throng'd streets, and lonely have felt-
In the echoing temple I lowly have knelt-
And have heard in the organ's deep chanting the while
Voices calling me far from that "Ocean-girt Isle."
But my footsteps now wander the wild woods among,
Where the glad birds are pouring their early spring song,
And the faces and tones which I mourned for before,
Have welcomed me back to my own native shore!

print-shops-Boz furnishes subjects to playwrights and farce-writers; he is the play himself, now that brutes feed where Garrick trod; he brings home to us tragedy, comedy, and farce; the mountain comes to Mahomet, to us in our easy chairs, by our fires, and wives' sides, unpoisoned by the gas and galleries, unheadached by the music and bill of the play. Bez, like Byron, has his imitators: since the increasing demand for the Nickleby article, Boz, not being protected by patent, like Mackintosh, has been pirated; cuckoos lay their eggs in his nest; countless are the factory-boys which Mrs. Trolloppe has turned loose; even history becomes Pickwickian; Gurwood, cut like Romeo into small shooting stars, despatches majors and minors, Scott and lot, all aiming at the life of England's Duke, which we hope (notwithstanding he has escaped a hundred victo ries) is still insured. These biographers run shilling handicaps-the more subscribers the better-nos numeri sumus. Whatever may be the merit of these imitations, for which we are not now looking, the strength of Bez consists in his originality, in his observation of charac ter, his humor-on which he never dwells. He leaves a good thing alone like Curacoa, and does not dilute it; wit, which is not taught in Gower street, drops cut of his mouth as naturally as pearls and diamonds in the fairy tale; the vein is rich, racy, sparkling, and goodnatured-never savage, sarcastic, malevolent, nor misanthropic; always well placed and directed against the odious, against purse proud insolence, and the abuse of brief authority. Boz never ridicules the poor, the humble, the ill-used; he spares to real sorrow “the bitterest insult of a scornful jest ;" his sympathies are on the right side, and carry his readers with him. Though dealing with the dregs of society, he is never indelicate, indecent, nor irreligious; he never approves nor countenances the gross, the immoral, or offensive; he but holds these vices up in a pillory, as a warning of the disgrace of criminal excess. Boz, like the bee, buzzes amid honey without clogging his wings; he handles pitch charmingly; the tips of the thumb and

But do I forget-ah! how can I e'er !—
That the heart of the stranger is burthened with care? fore-finger of the cigaresque senoras of Paraguay are

For a vow to afford such my utmost relief,

infinitely more discolored. He tells a tale of real crushing misery, in plain, and therefore most effective

Was made when my own heart was bursting with grief! language; he never then indulges in false sentimentality, Camden, South Carolina, 1839.

OLIVER TWIST.

Charles Dickens, alias Boz―the author of the Pickwick papers, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, &c., &c., is one of the lions of modern English literature. We extract from a late number of the London Quarterly Review part of a racy and original critique upon Oliver Twist, which presents in strong language both the excellencies and defects of the author. The whole review is too long for insertion, besides containing much matter that is irrelevant.

or mawkish, far-fetched verbiage. Fagin, Sikes, and the dog especially, are always in their proper and nateral places, always speaking, barking, and acting exactly as they ought to have done, and, as far as we are able to judge, with every appearance of truth. Boz sketches localities, particularly in London, with marvellous effect; he concentrates with the power of a camera lucida. Born with an organic bump for distinct observation of men and things, he sees with the eye and writes wild the pen of an artist-we mean with artistical skill, and not as artists write. He translates nature and life. The identical landscape or occurrence, when reduced on one sheet, will interest and astonish those who had be fore seen with eyes that saw not, and heard with ears that heard not, on whom previously the general inci dent had produced no definite effect. Boz sets before us in a strong light the water-standing orphan's eye, the condemned prisoner, the iron entering into his sou This individuality arrests-for our feelings for huma suffering in the aggregate are vague, erratic, and ur-defined. He collects them into one burning focus; a practical oppression is perfectly understood by the mass, even by the irrational "masses," however they may be ignorant of the real causes and appropriate remedies. A general wrong, a poll-tax, will be borne without resistance, while a particular outrage shown to the daughter of Wat Tyler came home to the clenched fists of a million fathers; for private feelings

"His works are a sign of the times; their periodical return excites more interest than that of Halley's comet. They, like good sermons, contribute to our moral health; for mirth, cakes, ale, and ginger hot in the mouth do us good; Mr. Froude's negation of negus to the contrary notwithstanding. The works of Boz come out in numbers, suited to this age of division of labor, cheap and not too long-double merits; there is just enough to make us rise from the feast, as all doctors of divinity and medicine do from dinner, with an appetite for more in fact, Boz is the only work which the super-pave the way to public outbreaks. ficial acres of type called newspapers leave the human race time to peruse. His popularity is unbounded not that that of itself is a test of either honesty or talent; O'Connell is the delight of Tipperary, and the Whigs were not unpopular in England. Boz fills the

Death, again, as an abstract idea, is a thing for declamation. Bez gives the newly-dug grave, the rope grating when withdraw from under the lowered coffin, and the hollow sourd from the shovelful of earth thrown in. The nearer we approach to the corpse, the more appalling is death.

The circumstantiality of the murder of Nancy is more harrowing than the bulletin of fifty thousand men killed at Borodino. Bloodshed in mid-day comes home to our peaceful threshold; it shocks the order of things; it occurs amid life. Wholesale carnage, battle's own daughter, is what we expect, and is gilded with glory and victory, not visited by shame and punishment.

shame when treated as a fool-born joke, and those who
are not ashamed to talk of a thing will not be long
ashamed to put it into practice. These Dodgers and
Sikes break into our Johnsons, rob the Queen's lawful
current English; they, at least, are unfettered by gram-
mar. They speak the energetic tone of this era of
popular outbreaks-potus et ex lex. The classics, like
other dogs, have had their day. Fagin, reasoning well,
votes Plato a bore. Can Cicero sharpen the "Artful
Dodger," or Euclid enlighten the speculative Mr. Sikes?
"D- Homo!"-these "ancients," dead and buried,
can't go the rail road pace of "them lifers." Boz is no
reader of Aristotle-

"Laws his Pindaric parents minded not,
For Boz was tragi-comically got."

Boz fails whenever he attempts to write for effect; his descriptions of rural felicity and country scenery, of which he clearly knows much less than of London, where he is quite at home and wide awake, are, except when comical, over-labored and out of Nature. His "gentle and genteel folks" are unendurable; they are devoid of the grace, repose, and ease of good society; a something between Cheltenham and New York. They and their extreme propriety of ill-bred goodbreeding, are (at least we hope so) altogether the mis- His muthos, or plot, is devoid of art. This, a fault in conceptions of our author's uninitiated imagination, comedy, is pardonable in tragedy-where persons, not mystified by the inanities of the kid-glove novelists. events, excite. We foresee the thunder-cloud over Boz is, nevertheless, never vulgar when treating on Edipus and the master of Ravenswood without desubjects which are avowedly vulgar. He deals truly crease of interest, which is not diminished even on rewith human nature, which never can degrade; he takes perusal, by our perfect knowledge of the catastrophe; up every thing, good, bad, or indifferent, which he but Boz must remember that he is not in the high works up into a rich alluvial deposite. He is natural, tragedy line, which deals more in expression of elevated and that never can be ridiculous. He is never guilty persons and thoughts, in an elevated manner, than in of the two common extremes of second-rate authors the mere contrast of situations and events; and make the one a pretension of intimate acquaintance with the a better story next time. He should also avoid, in inner life of Grosvenor Square-the other an affected future, all attempts at pure pathos-on which he never ignorance of the doings, and a sneering at the bad din- ventures without reminding us of Sterne and his infeners of Bloomsbury—he leaves that for people to whom riority to that master. Let him stick to his native vein such dinners would be an unusual feast. We are of the serio-comic, and blend humor with pathos. He bound to admit that Boz's young ladies are awful-shines in this; his fun sets off his horrors as effectually Kate Nickleby is the best of them-but they are all as a Frenchman's gravity in a quadrille does his levity bad enough; but we must also admit that, both in fic-in an emeute, or a massacre.'

tion and reality, these bread-and-butter budding beauties are most difficult to deal with, except we are in love with them. They are neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, and as Falstaff says of Dame Quickly, no man knows where to have them.

Boz is regius professor of slang, that expression of the mother-wit, the low humor of the lower classes, their Sanscrit, their hitherto unknown tongue, which, in the present phasis of society and politics, seems likely to become the idiom of England. Where drabs, house-breakers, and tavern-spouting patriots play the first fiddle, they can only speak the language which expresses their ideas and habits. In order fully to enjoy their force, we must know the conventional value of these symbols of ideas, although we do not understand the lingo like Boz, who has it at its fingers' ends. We are amused with the comicality, in spite of our repugnance that the decent veil over human guilt and infirmities should be withdrawn; we grieve that the deformity of nakedness should not only be exhibited to the rising generation, but rendered agreeable by the undeniable drollery; a coarse transcript would not be tolerated. This is the great objection which we feel towards Oliver Twist. It deals with the outcasts of humanity, who do their dirty work in work, pot, and watch-houses, to finish on the Newgate drop. Alas! for the Horatian precept, "Virginibus puerisque canto." The happy ignorance of innocence is disregarded. Our youth should not even suspect the possibility of such hidden depths of guilt, for their tender memories are wax to receive and marble to retain. These infamies feed the inmate evil principle, which luxuriates in the supernatural and horrid, the dread and delight of our childhood, which is never shaken off, for no man entirely outlives the nursery. We object to the familiarizing our ingenious youth with "slang;" it is based in travestie of better things. Noble and generous ideas, when expressed in low and mean terms, become ludicrous from the contrast and incongruity; "du sublime au ridicule il n'y a qu'un pas." But the base vehicle conveys too frequently opinions and sentiments which could thus alone gain admission. The jests and jeers of the "slangers" leave a sting behind them. They corrupt pure taste and pervert morality, for vice loses

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THE STUDENT

IN AGRIPPA'S MUSEUM.*

It was a spacious vaulted room,

And many a carving grim,

In torch-light now, and now in gloom,
Scowled fearfully on him.

In the midst a brazen table bore
A mighty volume old,

And sealed it was with five and four
Clasps of pure burnish'd gold.

Hard by a silver censer stood,

And as nearer the student came, The smouldering fire of sandal-wood Shot up into a flame.

And he thought as it met his eager sight,

He would open and therein look

On the hidden things, be what they might,
Of that old nine-clasp'd book.

The clasps he openeth one by one,

And little dreaming of ill,
The words uncouth to read begun,
That did the pages fill.

The incense flame, of late so clear,
Now into vapor passed,
While mingled tones of glee and fear,
Swept by upon the blast.

And as those accents rang around,
A knock comes at the door;

Yet he, it seem'd, heard not the sound,
For he read as before.

On, on, he went, when, lo! there came
A second and louder blow!-
Is it the breeze that fans the flame,
And makes it flicker so?

But, with a third and furious stroke,
The iron door now rang,-
Like one from fearful dream awoke,

To his feet the student sprang.

"But the most extraordinary story of Agrippa is told by Delrio, and is as follows:-Agrippa had occasion one time to be absent for a few days from his residence at Louvaine. During

his absence he entrusted his wife with the key of his museum, but with an earnest injunction that no one on any account should be allowed to enter. Agrippa happened at that time to have a boarder in his house, a young fellow of insatiable curiosity, who

would never give over importuning his hostess, till at length he seum that attracted his attention was a book of spells and incantations. He spread this book upon a table, and, thinking no harm, began to read aloud. He had not long continued this occupation, when a knock was heard at the door of the chamber. The youth took no notice, but continued reading. Presently followed a second knock, which somewhat startled him. The space

obtained from her the forbidden key. The first thing in the mu

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The reviewer of Crabbe's life and writings, in the Edinburgh Review, whilst speaking of his being a great reader, observes "But the reading which was constantly going on, was mostly reading for amusement. Nineteen twentieths of their principal supply of modern liters. ture are said to have been novels." Perhaps it was a romantic tendency produced by such reading, that led him, when an old man, to imagine himself in love; for it is said that he then fell in love with several ladies, one after the other in quick succession; and these passions could hardly have been otherwise than imaginary.

of a moment having elapsed, and no answer made, the door was opened, and a demon entered! "For what purpose am I called?" said the stranger sternly; "what is it you demand to have done?" The youth was seized with the greatest alarm and struck speechless. The demon advanced towards him, took him by the throat and strangled him, indignant that his presence The expressed idea coincides but faintly with the should be thus invoked from pure thoughtlessness and presumption.”—[Vide Godwin's Lives of the Necromancers: article original, as it existed in the mind. The one is to the

"Cornelius Agrippa."

V.

other, as the purple and amber clouds which float

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