man, who had also filled away, and was now crowding all sail in chase. Muster aft here, my men; tumble aft here, every one of you; come down from aloft, and up from below: bo'son's mate, send the people aft.'

'My lads,' said Buntline, addressing his hundred bold followers, it is fit that you should be acquainted with the fact of my being the bearer of a message from the French admiral of the West India station, to the government of the United States, which, my men, is of vital importance to the interest of our country. I do not tell you this, to stimulate you to any greater exertion, but merely as a reciprocation of that confidence which I am proud to believe you repose in me. I know you will stand by me to the last - I have tested it. In the present disabled state of the Rover, it will be impossible to escape from yonder squadron, now rapidly overhauling us; but, my lads, I have a plan to propose, the successful execution of which will crown us with glory and success. Listen to it.'

The plan was then revealed; and when Buntline had done speak ing, three hearty cheers evinced the readiness with which the crew entered into it.

'Men,' resumed Buntline, 'the signal will be Liberty!- and when I give it forth, let every one of you do as I have directed, now, my lads, don't forget the word, Liberty.'

Groups of men were now seen spiking the cannon 'fore and aft, so as to render them perfectly useless. The muskets were all thrown overboard, and the powder, with the exception of what each man carried about him, totally destroyed; this done, the crew armed themselves, and mustering aft, awaited the farther orders of their commander.

The

In the mean time, the Englishman was rapidly advancing, with the intention of carrying the American by boarding. He was not ten yards astern, and at every moment gaining on the Rover. Buntline stood watching him as the tiger does his prey, scarcely breathing, in the intensity of his interest, and awaiting with a painful suspense the moment when he might put his daring scheme in operation. whistle of the bo'son's mate was heard on board of the Englishman, and the cry of Away there, boarders, away!' told their opponents how to expect them. Buntline cast a quick and anxious glance upon his own seamen, who stood grasping their cutlasses with an emotion as intense as his own. It was a moment of fearful excitement on board of either vessel, during which nothing was heard but the ripple of the water as they sped along. At length the dark shadow of the Briton's canvass fell upon the deck of the Rover: another minute, and they were yard-arm and yard-arm.

'Sheer to!' whispered Buntline to the man at the wheel-'sheer to!' The bows of the privateer slightly deviated, and her antagonist was within three yards of her. Clank went the grapnels of the Englishman, and both vessels were brought broadside and broadside.

'Board!' shouted the British captain; and two-thirds of his crew sprang over the bulwarks and upon the decks of the Rover, without the slightest opposition. Buntline gave one glance to the dark forms of the foemen that crowded his forecastle; and applying the trumpet to his mouth, thundered forth the word, 'Liberty! In an instant the

Americans, who had gathered abaft the main-mast, leaped upon the hammocks and nettings, and sprang like so many cats upon the deck and in the rigging of the Englishman. Like a torrent they swept away the few who had remained on board of her; and now, ranging themselves along the bulwarks, they prepared to repel the enemy as they attempted to regain their own ship.

Cast off the grapnels!' shouted Buntline; and that loud order awoke the Britons from the stupor of amazement in which they were thrown by the sudden and singular movement of their opponents. They mounted the bulwarks, and endeavoured to regain their own vessel; but they were every where met by opposing cutlasses. In vain they pressed-in vain they thronged; they were every where driven back upon the Rover's decks, or pushed into the sea. They rushed frantically forward, but their hopes were baseless: they might as well have attempted to force a wall of iron, as to beat back that rank of heroes. Some of their opponents seized a huge spar, and were pushing the two vessels apart. They separated-they were yards asunder - and the unscathed English brig, with her yankee crew, forged a head, leaving the shattered, harmless hulk of the Rover in possession of a hundred distracted Britons!

Three of the wildest huzzas that ever yet rang upon a startled ocean, burst from the lips of the victorious Americans, as the starspangled banner unfolded itself from the peak of their prize: then pile after pile of canvass rose upon her tapering spars; and when the sun that night sought his ocean bed, a wide waste of blue water rolled between the stately prize of the Americans, and the shattered wreck of their once gallant privateer.

L'ORIENT: A FRAGMENT.

"T was in a glorious eastern isle,
Where the accacias lightly move

Their snowy wreaths where sunbeams smile,
Brightly but scorchingly, like love-

Round which the ocean lies so clear,

The deep red coral blushes through

The waves that catch its crimson hue,

While the soft roseate tints appear

Mixed with the sky's reflected blue;
Where roses blossom through the year,

And palms their green-plumed branches rear;
And where the very zephyr comes,
O'erladen with such rich perfumes,
It sighs and droops its airy wings,
And sleeps amid the sweets it brings.
Where beauteous birds go glancing by,
And shining like unearthly things,
Making light round them as they fly,
And shedding glories from their wings;
Where the fond bulbul sweetly sings,
And warbling woos his love, the rose;
And where the evening only brings
A fount of light, that purer flows
Than that which with the day removed
'Twas there I lived, and there I loved!

M.

THE PORTICO.

NUMBER FOUR.

'Scribendi recte sapere est principium et fons.'

HORACE

WHAT is implied in fine writing? Are there any characteristics by which it may be infallibly distinguished? These are interrogatories which it is as difficult to answer, as the inquiry of 'What is truth? Fine writing is susceptible of an almost endless variety of forms, like the features, countenances, and characters of those men among our race, who have raised themselves to the highest pitch of elevation by their talents and virtues. Nevertheless, as in persons of the highest distinction, although there may be endless diversity in their shades of greatness, yet there will always be discoverable some properties common to them all; so, also, there are some qualities which enter as essential and indispensable ingredients in all kinds of excellent composition. The first and most important of these ingredients, according to the maxim of Horace, is good sense, mother wit, right understanding, just conceptions, sound wisdom. This is the materia prima out of which the author is to model the creations of his genius, whether they consist of the investigations of philosophy, the details of history, specimens of oratory, the fictions of poetry and romance, or the sallies of wit. Of what avail is it, that a writer abounds in striking sentiments, if they be not just; that he broaches and maintains ingenious theories, if they be unsound and whimsical; or that he glitters with sparkling imagery, that delights the fancy, if they darken rather than enlighten his subject, or encumber rather than facilitate the transition of his thoughts? In philosophical disquisitions, the excellencies are a faithful interpretation of nature, profound reflections, conclusive arguments, apt illustrations, and all these expressed in a clear, neat, and intelligible style; while from the gravity of its office, it requires the utter exclusion of pompous diction and needless embellishments. Literary productions, both in prose and poetry, admit of greater latitude in the indulgence of ornament, and the latter of a higher degree than the former, yet always restraining the propensity for embellishment within the bounds prescribed by correct taste, clothing the finest sentiments in a chastened garb, and carefully avoiding a gaudy decoration. Oratory demands more vehemence, passion, and bolder figures of rhetoric, than the calm discussions of philosophy, as its object is to persuade and stimulate to action; but in this field, still, the greatest proof of skill and efficiency will be found, in clear and satisfactory views of the subject, coherent thoughts, natural arrangement, solid reasoning, and fine flashes of sentiment that spring spontaneously from the nature of the subject. Dramatic writings attain perfection by an attention to the dignity and importance of the subject and action, the arrangement and development of the plot, the just and striking delineation of characters, the strokes of pathos in tragedy, and the sallies of wit in comedy.

When, therefore, the inquiry is made, what is fine writing, our only reply must be, it consists in the conveyance of just and admira

ble thoughts by means of chaste imagery, apt illustrations, and choice language. What kinds of thoughts are included under this description, can no more be determined by designation or definition, than we can decide for all men what fruits are excellent, and what unsavory and disgusting. The relishes of mankind in works of genius are as diversified as the perceptions of their palates in different kinds of food and drink. There is no endowment of our nature, however, more cultivable than taste, and it undergoes continual changes according to the improvement of the understanding, and a familiarity with the most finished models. At first, we derive enjoyment from the coarsest fare provided by the writer; the most florid displays of eloquence awake us to rapture, and the rudest attempts at wit transport us with merriment. When our minds are more enlightened by study and reflection, and our powers of discernment sharpened by experience and observation, our former relishes are altered, and we can derive pleasure, no longer, save from the more exquisite performances of genius. No author can be regarded as good, who, at every step in our progress through his work, does not furnish our minds with useful and important ideas; who arrives not at precise maxims and conclusions; who supplies not our understandings with the materials of wholesome knowledge, and engrafts not in the heart the principles of truth and virtue. If works be intended principally for amusement, still all the sentiments expressed should be correct, and have their root in sound science, the delineations of nature conformed to their archetype, and even the wildest flashes of merriment burst from the human feelings as the electric fluid breaks from the clouds. Every effort beyond this may be buffoonery and caricature, but can never become genuine wit and pleasantry, while even these extravagancies, if at all licensable, will derive their frequency and comic power from their greater or less conformity to nature. Milton has been said to have carried human nature along with him when he deserted the precincts of this world, and Shakspeare never fails to preserve the lineaments of human creatures, even when he delineates those supernatural beings who are the farthest removed from all our conceptions. In this circumstance, they both displayed their judgment and profound acquaintance with the sources of human enjoyment, since we cannnot sympathize with personages who are totally divested of all our properties. Milton was sufficiently bold, and adventurous to the utmost limits of poetic license, when he described to us the scenes of Heaven and hell the characters and occupations of angels-his figures of sin and death at hell's gates, his limbo of vanity, and the reign of Anarch, or Old Night; but Pollok has transgressed all the bounds of propriety and good sense, as well as taste, and harrowed the feelings by the exhibition of ideal monstrosities, the principal of which is his horrid form of the second death, too shocking to be endured, and too remote from our conceptions to be relished, and better fitted for demons than men. His whole poem is composed of a series of abortions, disfigured, disgusting, and odious. Milton extended his flight to the utmost boundaries of probability and verisimilitude, but Pollok has plunged at once into the regions of wild extravagance and incredible fiction.

But to adhere more closely to the subject of our present disquisition, the principles of fine writing. Man, being endowed by his Creator with the power of uttering articulate sounds, would spontaneously commence the communication of his thoughts by language; and the fact stated in the sacred scriptures that Adam gave names to all animals, is not only credible as a matter of revelation, but consonant to the profoundest lessons of philosophy. Language would be the natural product of the faculty of speech, and would by gradual accessions attain to that refinement and perfection in which we find it among civilized nations. The conveyance of ideas at a distance, by written characters, would be as natural a result, from the frequent attempts which would be repeated for this purpose, amidst the lapse of ages, and the endless improvements in knowledge and the arts. They who discover so much embarrassment in assigning an origin to these inventions, and from a view of the difficulties with which they are met in ascribing so admirable a monument of skill and ingenuity to the unassisted powers of the human mind, would have recourse to the intervention of supernatural revelation, and make God the immediate author of spoken and written language, certainly reflect no credit upon their philosophical discernment, beside soiling with dishonor the works of the Almighty. Is it probable, that this great Being formed mankind so imperfectly, that his perpetual interference was immediately necessary, in order that the workmanship of his hands should fulfil its functions? The scriptures do not assert that God, but that Adam gave names to all living things, as they passed in review before him; by which terms, no doubt, is implied, in the lively language of the East, that our great fore-father nominated the different objects as they were successively offered to his inspection. It can scarcely be supposed in this case, with any color of reason, that all animals inhabiting the various latitudes, from North to South, East to West, were at that time exposed to the review of Adam. The endless diversity of languages, too, subsisting among men, completely demonstrates their supreme control over them, and capacity to originate them; a diversity which would be no better explained by the confusion of tongues which took place at the Tower of Babel, (supposing that the words signify a confusion of tongues and not of counsels, as some interpretors maintain,) than the current of waters which runs from the Mediterranean into the Atlantic Ocean, would account for the flux and reflux of the tides in our rivers, or for the phenomena of the Gulf Stream. Every appearance in nature, and every argument of reason, is in favor of the doctrine, that man himself is the author both of spoken and written language; and we might as well ascribe the orders of architecture and the structure of clocks and watches, as well as the demonstrations of Newton, to divine inspiration, as to refer to its aid these too vehicles of thought and intelligence. The rule is as sound in the investigations of science, and in the interpretation of scripture, as in the fictions of poetry, nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus incederet. Let the intervention of God be presumed only in those cases which are worthy of his care, and in which the results can be explained by a recurrence to none of the known principles and laws

of nature.

MARIGOLD.