terrible champion of freedom of opinion and of republican liberty, raising on high his spiritstirring voice in their defence in worst extremes, and 'on the perilous verge of battle where it raged; had he not participated in counsel, in act, and in suffering with England's boldest spirits - had he not thus felt in himself, and seen in others, the might of the unconquerable will,' the unshaken, unseduced, unterrified constancy of faithful zeal and love; he would not have gained that insight into seemly and generous arts and affairs, that intimate acquaintance with the nobler parts of human nature, that made him the greatest of poets. Had Milton lived always a recluse student, his learned fancy would have undoubtedly enriched his country's literature with Lycidas and Comus, but the world would have wanted the Paradise Lost. "But the American literary man has yet other reasons to be grateful for having been born in this age and country; and they are reasons such as a mind cast in the grand antique mould of Milton's, would prize as most worthy of fervent thanksgiving. Every thing here is propitious to honest independence of thought. Such an independence is the presiding genius of all our institutions; it is the vital spirit that gives life to the whole. * Here there is no apparently general agreement of society to awe the mind from investigation of what claims to be certain and established truth. And when examination on any subject brings conviction, the inquirer is seldom compelled to meet that hardest trial of human fortitude, the renunciation of old associations and long cherished doctrines in the face of universal scorn and indignation, and without the solace of human sympathy. More than this: that restlessness of enterprise, which alike nerves the frontier settler to the toils and adventures of the wilderness, and kindles the young dreams of the political aspirant; which whitens the ocean with our canvass, drives the rail-road through the desert, and startles the moose at his watering-place, or scares the eagle from his high solitary perch with the sudden beat of the steam-boat's wheels - that one and the same ardent, restless spirit ruling our whole people, can have little communion with that abject prostration of intellect, that makes man crouch before his fellow, submitting his reason and his conscience to another's will. It is thus that the adventurous ardor, so efficient in external and material matters, naturally extends its energies to the moral and intellectual. Here are at once provided facilities for the propagation of truth, and securities for some portion, at least, of respect for conscientious error." Passing a just and striking picture of the effect of rank and patronage upon literature and the human intellect, we select a few paragraphs from that portion of the address which illustrates the dangers of the American scholar'- reluctantly omitting the forcible comments upon that spirit of individual speculation and accumulation which is ruining so many young men in our country: "One of the most obvious of the intellectual dangers growing out of the circumstances otherwise thus fruitful in blessings, is the danger of falling into a concerted, smattering superficiality, in consequence of that very universality of occupation and inquiry which seems, in other respects, so propitious to the formation of a sound, comprehensive understanding, so useful to the man of books, so graceful to the man of business. Such superficiality is undeniably one of the besetting sins of our reading men. It shows itself in the capacity of talking fluently upon all things, and of doing every thing; and in the habit of talking inaccurately upon all things, and of doing every thing badly. It nourishes and sustains itself upon compends, abridgments, extracts, and all the other convenient subsidia of improved education; excellent things in their way, but like other great improvements of our day, wheeling you to the object of your journey, without permitting you to know much of the country you pass through. You may trace it by the small pedantry that commonly accompanies half knowledge. You may track it in legislative speeches and reports, in public documents and legal arguments, and even in Judicial opinions, where facts, and numbers, and grave statements of argument and collations of authorities are all that is wanted; but where their place is filled by puerile rhetoric, by common-place instances of Greek and Roman history, or by mouldy scraps of thumb-worn school-boy Latin-shabby finery at the best, and all of it out of place. Yet the temptation to the commission of such folly is not great, and the remedy is easy. No man can hope to know every thing within the knowledge of his whole race. Let him then study with diligent accuracy that single branch of knowledge which it happens to be most his duty to know well, and he will have time and opportunity left to learn much more. Let him keep his curiosity awake, and his affections alive to whatever concerns the welfare of his neighbor, his country, or his kind. He cannot then fail to learn much, and he will know how to use all he learns well. His understanding will be tempered by use to that right medium that best brings the scattered and broken rays of light from all quarters, to converge upon any object on which the mind is called to fix its attention." "There is yet a danger, of quite another sort, that with us sometimes besets and misleads the literary man. Familiarized from youth with the glories and beauties of European literature, his ambition is early fired to imitate or to rival its excellence. He forms to himself grand plans of intellectual exploits, all of them probably incongruous with the state and taste of his country, and most of them doubtless beyond his own ability. The embryo author projects epic poems, and in the meanwhile executes sonnets in quantities; the artist feeds his imagination with ideal historical compositions on the scale and above the excellence of those of Raphael; the young orator dreams of rivalling the younger Pitt, and of ruling the nation by his eloquence, at the age of four-and-twenty. These enthusiasts enter the living world, and soon find that their expectations are but a dream. They discover either that the world rates their talent very differently from their own estimate of it, or else that the state of society about them is wholly adverse to its exercise in the direction or on the scale their ambitious fancy had anticipated. The coarse matter-of-fact character of our world begins to disgust them. They see duller school-fellows outstrip them in worldly success. They see the honors and profits of public office bestowed upon some whom they know to be unworthy. The profits of trade and speculation are gathered before their eyes by the unlettered. "Disappointed and disgusted, they are now tempted to ascribe their disappointment to the republican institutions of their country; not reflecting that it is impossible to enjoy all kinds of good at the same time; that whatever is administered by men, must be subject to abuse; and that to be happy and successful, every man must some how or other conform himself to the sphere where Providence has placed him. If the scholar gives way to this temptation, he becomes a discordant, jarring thing in society, harmonizing with nothing near or around him. He dwells with a sort of complacent disgust upon every imperfection of our social state. He gradually becomes a rebel in heart to our glorious institutions. His affections and secret allegiance transfer themselves to some other form of government and state of society, such as he dreams to have formed the illustrious men and admirable things of his favorite studies- forms of government or states of society, such as he knows only by their accidental advantages, without a glimpse of their real and terrible evils. "When this mental disease, for so it may be called without a metaphor, seizes irrecoverably upon the thoughts of the retiring, the sensitive, and timid lover of books and meditation, his capacity for useful exertion is ended; he is thenceforward doomed to lead a life of fretful restlessness alternated with querulous dejection. On the other hand, should he be naturally a man of firmer temperament and sounder discretion, time and experience will sober down his fancies, and make him join in the labors of life with cool submission. Still he is in danger of being a soured and discontented man, occasionally compelled to feign what he does not feel, and always unsustained by that glad confidence, that eager zeal and gay hope, which ever cheer him who loves and honors his country, feels her manifold blessings, and is grateful for all of them." Beautifully printed upon a large bold type, and paper of the finest texture and color, this excellent Address recommends itself to the eye as well as to the taste and understanding of the reader. THE PARRICIDE: By the author of 'Miserrimus.' In two volumes, 12mo. Philadelphia: E. L. CAREY AND A. HART. THERE is a class of men in this world — a class happily small · who love to gloat over the worst passions of the heart — to dwell upon the darkest scenes of existenceand to represent human nature as utterly revolting and corrupt. A prominent worthy of this unworthy genus, is the author of 'Miserrimus' and' The Parricide,' the last named of which, it is sufficient to say, is only worthy of the writer of the first. It is a gloomy rifacimento, neither calculated, in any respect or degree, to please the imagination, arrest the judgment, nor win the heart. On the contrary, the Parricide is a human tiger, 'black with malice and revenge, and dipped in blood from head to heel;' and the only relief which the reader experiences in perusing the revolting details connected with his history, is afforded by diverse metaphysical talkings, and hyperbolical Germanisms, the spawn of a muddy brain. The attempt of the author to answer the objections which his work is so well calculated to incur, is feeble and unsatisfactory. He is a moral maniac, and should be placed in some benevolent asylum for lunatics, until he shall have found time and opportunity to sanify. MY PRISONS: MEMOIRS OF SILVIO PELLICO: with Additions, and a Biographical Notice of Pellico, by PIERO MARONCELLI: Translated from the Italian. In two vols. 12mo. pp. 643. Cambridge, Mass: CHARLES FOLSOM. THE first volume of this publication is a new translation of the ‘Prizioni' of Silvio Pellico, published in 1832, which excited so great an interest in Europe and in this country. As most of our readers are familiar with the story of this man of misfortune and genius, it will be unnecessary to give any account of the book, which has already, by its touching simplicity of style, and display of Christian feeling and devotion, awakened the sympathy of so many, and painted, more strikingly than could volumes of declamation, the injustice and oppression under which the captives suffered. The translation of the work is in general easy and correct, though slight inelegancies of style, caused by too scrupulous an adherence to the original, occasionally appear. A biographical notice of the poet, by his friend and companion in suffering, Maroncelli, is prefixed to the second volume, and is full of interest, by reason of the light it throws upon Pellico's history, and the sketches it affords of other distinguished individuals. The incident which led Silvio to the composition of the dramatic poem that gained him his highest reputation, is mentioned. He had been engaged with a tragedy upon a Grecian subject — Laodicea - but seeing by chance a young actress, who afterward became celebrated throughout Italy, her pale and expressive countenance inspired him to the conception of his Francesca. Having written the play of Francesca da Rimini, he gave it to Foscolo to read; who counselled him to burn the new piece, while he highly approved of the old one. Silvio reversed the decision of his friend, destroyed the Laodicea, and produced the other; and thus became known as the first living dramatist of his country. Pellico also translated Byron's Manfred into prose. The 'Additions' of Signor Maroncelli are notes to the narrative of his friend. Unchecked by the rigid censorship which restrained the disclosures of Pellico, these notes present a more fearful picture of the cruelties exercised upon the unhappy prisoners. Their food and manner of labor is described: they were, it seems, deprived of all articles of convenience. An instance is mentioned in which the director objected to the use of a wooden fork, alleging it to be a violation of discipline: "Silvio was mild and patient, but he could not endure certain stupid exactions, made under the pretence of being necessary to good order. It appeared to him that there could be no violation of order in leaving us a wooden fork. In vain; the harmlessness of such a concession could not enter heads more wooden than the forks. We were, therefore, in the habit of repeating on similar occasions a saying proverbial throughout Italy, which is essentially characteristic of the good people of Austria: Indietro ti e muro: (Back with you and the wall.*) Under these vexations, Silvio could no longer restrain himself. Will it shake the Austrian empire,' said he, if, instead of eating filthily with my fingers, I make use of a piece of wood ??" Our ingenious prisoners, however, found a substitute for the forks in the wooden needles given them for the purpose of knitting stockings, which they tied together for use. Many other instances of the most exacting cruelty are related. One of the captives had domesticated a young sparrow, which being accidentally discovered in his cell by the director of police, was taken from the prisoner, while the guards were dis "Indietro tu e il muro. The proverb refers to an order given by the Austrian soidiers, who, during a procession at Naples, directed the crowd to fall back. They were answered that it was impossible to fall back farther, as the walls of the houses were already pressed against. Back with you and the wall!' was the rejoinder. missed for want of vigilance. After repeated appeals, however, to the clemency of the emperor, express permission was obtained for the restoration of the bird. Part of the second volume is occupied by Signor Maroncelli's essay, or sketch of an essay, upon the two great schools of composition heretofore distinguished by the appellations classic and romantic. Instead of this conventional and arbitrary distinction, founded only upon the form or material of the work, and not on a difference of essence, the author proposes to establish distinctive terms more definite, and which convey an idea of their meaning in themselves. These may be best explained in his own words: "Profound poetry, whether of thought, imagination, or sentiment, might, as I believe, be described by two words; the one mente (mind) comprehending thought and imagination; the other core (heart) expressing sentiment. From these I have ventured to form the compounds cor-mental, cor-mentalism, and cor-mentalist. In this compound, the word mente is used to denote every creation properly called intellectual; and the word core, every creation emanating from the feelings, from the gentlest breath of affection to the strongest emotion. From the intellect, as from a mother, proceeds the newly formed idea; the heart, like a tender nurse, receives and cherishes it into youth and manhood. "That poetry which neither thinks, imagines, nor feels profoundly, which skims over the surface without ever sounding the depths, not from being faulty in its kind, but from its nature, (thus forming a distinct species, good in its way, but the reverse of the other,) might be defined by the words superficialness and superficial, if they had not been perverted from their pure and original meaning, and become terms of censure. We would avoid needless occasions of misunderstanding. The words sketch and profile are familiar in the fine arts, and either of them would designate admirably that species of composition which touches without penetrating, which delineates without coloring. If we prefer the second as more definite, we may derive from it profilism, profilary, and profilist." Under these new distinctions, the writer calls the literature of Greece and Rome almost wholly profilary, while that of the ages of Christianity is on the contrary cor-mental. The latter epithet is applied to many writers whom we have been accustomed to consider as classic; Tacitus, and Ovid where he enters into the passions, as also Tasso, Alfieri, Klopstock, etc. The different characteristics of many of the modern Italian writers, and their claims to the distinction of cormentalism, are ingeniously but briefly sketched. We fully coincide with the author's opinion of Chiabrera, but are not disposed to agree with him in the ease of Guidi, to whom we think he is hardly just. The odes of Guidi have afforded us, in times past, too much pleasure for us to remember their author without respect. With regard to the novel system of classification proposed by Signor Maroncelli, we consider it entitled to the attention of the learned in every country. Its adoption would remove much vagueness and perplexity in the application of the terms now employed. The translation of this part of the book, by Miss Sedgwick, is much better than that of the other portions, and exhibits the style of an experienced writer. The work is accompanied with a few of Signor Maroncelli's poems, not heretofore given to the world, we believe, even in the original. They have been translated by Mrs. E. F. ELLET, with the taste and talent that mark every thing coming from the pen of that highly-gifted lady. But it is a task of almost insuperable difficulty to transfer the peculiar graces with which a poet embellishes his work, to another language. One might almost as well hope to gather the dew-drops that sparkle on a wild flower, and make them shine as beautifully on a hot-house rose: the element indeed is there, but its brightness and beauty will be seen no more. Nevertheless, the translator may give it new charms, as did Pope to the Iliad, which in his version is something more, if not something better, than Homer's. The fol lowing 'Hymn of the Night' is imbued with piety and deep feeling, and will serve to show the beauty and spirit of Mrs. Ellet's translations: HYMN OF THE NIGHT. IN Afric's sea, the king of light Aud, if along the unstable tide Her cherished torch the maid behold With fadeless beam securely glide Through all its pilgrim-course-consoled Who bids distrustful fear remove- The same omnipotent hand which spread Crowning the seasons in their flight With honors varying as they part, Which hung in yon blue dome afar, That hand, from shore to shorelet, now That they harm not the cherished ray; My God! Oh! banished ne'er from Thee Was spread the purple pall of day: Sinking with brow displeased away, False, impious rest, away! Here, in the gloom that knows no ray, Lord! who wert still my earliest friend! So speaks the beam, in sorrow's night With none with none to save! In error's dangerous gloom I stray, In the appendix, the author has translated into Italian poetry, very happily, some charming verses by the Hon. Mr. WILDE, and Mrs. ELLET. These volumes, we are certain, will form a valuable addition to any library; and the interesting details they present, will cause them to be generally read. We cordially recommend them. The mechanical execution, we should not forget to observe, is superb. |