ties. We look for this latter work with great curiosity, for we are convinced that so conscientious a searcher after relics of the old time as Mr. De Hass will bring together for us, much of interest and value from that old buried past of Virginia, of which we know so little. Virginia, July, 1851.

LA BELLA MARGHERITA.

[In the following attempt to render into our language a specimen of Italian ballad poetry, the translator has, he fears, succeeded only in preserving a strict fidelity to the words and metre of the original. Its musical flow, so characteristic of the tongue in which it was written,

TUPPER'S WORKS."

Mr. Longfellow, in four lines more beautiful than any other English hexameters that we know of, has thus typified the history of his heroine, Evangeline

"Something there was in her life, incomplete, imperfect,
unfinished,

As if a morning of June, with all its music and sunshine,
Suddenly paused in the sky, and fading, slowly descended,
Into the east again, from whence it late had arisen."

It has occurred to us, that Mr. Martin F. Tupper, whose complete works have been recently issued to the public by authority, is probably destined to a similar fate. He rose gloriously in seems almost impossible to be attained in a translation. England. He travelled on his western path to The subject of the ballad-which, by the way, however it the meridian of America. He illuminated for a may read here, is one of the most simple, harmonious lit- brief space some two or three of our Atlantic tle things of the kind, in its own native garb, that we have cities; and then, retracing his steps, has sunk ever seen-appears to relate to the poetical origin of into a twilight in his native land, which, we venthat "wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower"-la belle Marguerite of the French Trouveres and the favorite May-bud ture to predict, will gradually become darker. of all rural bards. In every land, the Daisy seems to have its poet laureate.]

We have no disposition to be unjust to Mr. Tupper. It must be frankly confessed that he is not one of our favorites. At the same time, we disclaim any feeling of hostility. We have never heard any thing alleged against his private character. He is, apparently, a man of good heart, correct morals, and kindly feelings. The burden of much that he has written is-love from man to man; and, especially, good will between John Bull and Brother Jonathan. In all this we heartily concur. We are favorably disposed to writers of motives and aims so unexceptionable. We are inclined to be indulgent; even though their sentiments be mainly common-places, and their rhymes not superior to those of the Poet's corner in a Saturday newspaper. We are content to take the will for the deed and to endure, now and then, a few sorry stanzas in consideration of their object, as we tolerate a dull sermon for the sake of its wholesome doctrine.

So do we feel towards Mr. Tupper. We have forgiven his occasional hovering about our ears, hoping that, like unele Toby's fly, he would go elsewhere in the wide world to finish his buzzing. We saw that he belonged to an ephemeral race, and were satisfied that he too should have his day

"Short is the date, alas! of modern rhymes, And 'tis but just to let them live betimes."

But patience, like all other virtues, hath its just limits. Mr. Tupper is fond of proverbs.

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF MARTIN F. TUPPER, D. C. L., F. R. S., in 4 vols. Authorized edition, Philadelphia: E. H. Butler & Co. 1851.

There is one which tells us that "there is a time thinking. There are others who affect a more for all things." The time hath long since arrived solid taste, but are secretly repelled by the severe when Mr. Tupper should have held his peace, simplicity of "the great old masters." It is to and he did not. On the contrary, he hath be- them an attractive novelty, when they find somecome more clamorous. Encouraged by his suc- thing having the name and semblance of wisdom, cess, he hath flown, like Napoleon's eagles, from bound in gilt cambric, and adorned with all the belfry to belfry, and rung out a notable peal to glories of fashionable typography. Among readannounce his coming. He hath invaded our con- ers like these, Mr. Tupper enjoys his chief poptinent. He hath trespassed upon our ground. ularity: and we are sensible that many good peo"Clausum fregit"—he hath broken into our free-ple will be grieved at what they may consider hold-planted his foot upon our soil-and scat- harsh criticism. But, nevertheless, as loyal cititered, far and wide, his notices of "continual zens (however humble) of the Republic of Letclaim." Hear him addressing "The Thirty No-ters, it is our duty to examine the merits of one ble Nations"who asserts a right to honor and distinction therein: and, so far as in us lies, we mean to discharge it faithfully, offend whomsoever we may.

"My prayer is one of right;
And while in grace ye listen,-
For tenderness I know,
Your eyes shall dim and glisten,

Your hearts shall thrill and glow.
For, on those hearts is written

The spirit of my song."

In the first place, Mr. Tupper is not devoid of talent or scholarship. He has enough of both to pass current in educated society enough, with diligence, to have attained mediocrity, perhaps something more, in a learned profession: certainly enough, if prudently used, to have set up a contributor to a second rate magazine. But he committed, early in life, the mistake of overrating himself. He set out with the conviction that he was a man of genius: and to this he added the belief that his genius was both versa tile and prolific. A copious flow of words aided the deception, and encouraged him to undertake task after task, finding them (in his way) so easily accomplished: while his false estimate of his own powers prompted him to enterprises that a man of sounder self-judgment would have shrunk from attempting.

* "Sumite materiam vestris, qui scribitis, æquam
Viribus; et versate diu quid ferre recusent,
Quid valeant humeri."

Our hearts do thrill and glow indeed! But not with the spirit of thy song. It is with the spirit of old Rob Roy-with the sense of undeserved inflictions, and the resolution to submit no longer. "Cawmil" (Campbell) me no Cawmils, Mr. Osbaldistone-my foot is on my native heath, and my name is Macgregor!" We tell you, Mr. Tupper, that this must have an end. We love our native tongue, and revere the true classics who have displayed its force and its beauty. We are proud of our heritage in Shakspeare, and Milton, and Bacon, and Locke. We honor Scott, and Byron, and Campbell, and Moore, and Macaulay, and a hundred others. But, sir, be it known, we take you to be not of them if among them. Though every dapper cockney be their countrymen, he is not therefore their compeer. We confer not upon such the rights of naturalization. We scorn their pretensions as we do those of the degenerate coxcombs, who boast of their nativity in the land of Washington, and Lee, and Henry, and assume to represent the "first families" of the Old Dominion. We ap- "All who have had the good fortune to meet ply to you, as to them, the standard of actual Mr. Tupper during his visit here, have been measurement. So far from ranking you among struck with his characteristic impulsiveness. In the grenadiers, we would scarce have you among accordance with this feature of his mind, nearly the drummer boys. Away with him-let him all of his most successful performances have been be hanged with his pen and ink-horn about his occasioned by something altogether incidental neck!" and unpremeditated-the result of an impulse accidentally, shall we not say providentially,f imparted. It was so with the first work in this * Choose subjects not too weighty for your Muse; Think, what her strength will bear, and what refuse."

66

We are aware that our author has admirers and partisans in the midst of us. We know that he is a great light in the literary circles of Lowell and that, elsewhere, his worship is cultivated by others who ought to have known better the value of such an idol. There are many who read only to kill time, and who are addicted to books which do not give them the trouble of

Oh! that Mr. Tupper could or would have profited by the advice of the Roman poet.

The publisher's preface to the first volume of this edition gives us an insight into the author's habit (we cannot say method) of writing, not unworthy of notice.

↑ "Providentially imparted.." The publisher talks reverentially, as one might do of the discoveries to which Newton was led by the fall of the apple. "The principle of Gravitation"-and "The Crock of Gold!"

series, respecting the composition of which he and then-"gives it to THE WORLD in its finished has given the following account. state!"

"If I did,' said the man, 'it would do me no good, because merely finding it might not make it mine.'

"But, suppose you could not only find such a treasure, but honestly keep it, would you not think yourself lucky?'

"Some years ago, he purchased a house at We quote again from the publisher's preface. Brighton. While laying out the garden, he had "With respect to the origin of Proverbial occasion to have several drains made. One day Philosophy we have been able to gather the folobserving a workman, Francis Suter, standing lowing particulars. At the age of seventeen he in one of the trenches, wet and wearied with was engaged to a young lady, now his wife, but toil, Mr. Tupper said to him in a tone of pleas-whom he did not marry till nine years afterantry, would you not like to dig up there a ward. 'I wished,' says he, 'to give her my ideas crock of gold?' of marriage, but I did not care to write them in a sermon, nor yet to put them into rhyme: so I wrote, in a style of my own, my article on 'MARRIAGE. This naturally suggested 'Love,' and I composed a piece in the same style on FriendSHIP.' The young lady put them away in her escritoire, and I thought no more of the matter. A year or two after our marriage, a literary friend of mine, who was publishing a magazine, came to me and told me he wished me to write some poetry for him. I told him I couldn't write poetry and wouldn't write in magazines. He then asked my wife if she had any thing of my com"Here was wisdom. The remark of the hon- position. She looked among her papers, and est trench-digger at once set in motion a train of found the three pieces I had written for her. He thought in the mind of the author. He entered urged me to publish them, or to write a book his study, wrote in large letters on a sheet of pa- like them. In ten weeks from that time the first per these words, THE CROCK OF GOLD, a tale series of Proverbial Philosophy' was in the prinof Covetousness,' and in less than a week this re-ter's hands. I wrote it at odd times, and on scraps markable story was finished. By the advice of of paper; often in the midst of all sorts of busihis wife, however, he spent another week in re-ness and pleasure.'' writing it, and then gave it to the world in its finished state."

"Oh yes, sir, I suppose I should-but,' after a considerable pause, but, I am not so sure, sir, after all, that that is the best thing that could happen to me. I think on the whole I would rather have steady work and fair wages all the season than to find a crock of gold.'

The second series of Proverbial Philosophy, as we learn from the same authority, was commenced at the desire of a friend, who very judiciously "backed his request with a handsome present of books." Such unlooked for liberality brought out the chapter on GIFTS."* Soon

Here we see the destiny again-the crisis and the hero-"The Hour and the Man." It reCan a more ordinary incident be imagined than minds one of Bonaparte's triumphs, only that this, which has swelled into such importance in the Corsican victor had to work so hard for his the eyes of Mr. Tupper and his eulogist? Cer-success. It was no after dinner amusement for tainly, it was a sensible thing in the laborer to him-at odd times and on scraps of paper-like apply the lesson which had been taught him from the sport of this British Bard, which in ten weeks his infancy, that the fruits of honest and reg-threw the first series of the "Proverbial Philosoular industry are more profitable than sudden phy" into the hands of the printer-another treawealth. But who, beside our author himself, sure to be bestowed upon the world! Invaluable would have grasped the saying as a "providen- Gifts! Munificent Mr. Tupper! tial" inspiration, and hurried off, full of the divine afflatus, to dedicate himself to the great work of proclaiming it throughout the earth-to register his vow by a flourishing inscription "in large letters, on a sheet of paper"—to baptise the prodigy, which he designed to bring forth, almost before its conception? And then there is the rapidity of its execution-actually written in less *We have some curiosity to know which of the folthan a week-"this remarkable story" finished lowing lines in that poem (?) had reference to the case of between two Sundays! He has no need of the the donor of the books. labor limæ: his work leaps from his brain fullformed and perfect. The "nonum prematur in annum" maxim may do for men of meaner parts: for him it is an obsolete idea. Nine days is too long a period of gestation for the quick genius. of this age. Indulgent to his Eve, with her weak woman's fears and doubts, he does condescend to spend one other week in re-writing it, Nevertheless, give, for it shall be a discriminating test

"Go to, then, thou that sayest—I will give and rivet the For pride shall kick at obligation, and push the giver

links,

from him.

There are who sow liberalities, to reap the like again;
But men accept the boon, scorning the shallow usurer:

VOL. XVII-70

after Mr. Tupper was obliged to cut down an that the world would have lost nothing if they elm tree and he was led, preternaturally we had never been published. They present us with suppose, to study the concentric rings which mark little that is new, and nothing valuable of which its annual growth. The occasion might have we were not already possessed from other passed unimproved with a personage of less wis-sources. As to diversion-there certainly is no dom: but our author was struck for the first time accounting for tastes; but we find them the stiffwith the analogy between the life of trees and est reading through which we ever toiled, not exthe life of man! "YESTERDAY" was the result cepting Coke's Institutes. We are of the same of this original thought: which, of course, was mind with a friend of ours, who once told a flufollowed by "To-DAY," and that in its turn by ent book-seller, in the midst of an extravagant "TO-MORROW," in such haste that the sun could eulogy upon Tupper, that he would not read the hardly keep up with them. It became a ques-"thousand lines" if he were to receive the "Protion, like that at St. Patrick's birth, whether verbial Philosophy" for so doing. The average "the child was too fast or the clock was too slow." of the whole is flat and dull, and a fit emblem At all events Mr. Tupper, like a stalwart cham- would depict the author standing amid the low pion of the Ring, proved to be always up to prairies of our western country, where

time.

"This is his manner of writing," says his publisher. "He composes only when some striking occurrence suggests an idea."

"From the bounded level of his mind Short views he takes, nor sees the lengths behind."

It is difficult, if not impossible, to criticise them: for they are so destitute of salient points, that the eye ranges in vain for prominent objects. Their chief characteristic is quantity, and their merits have been already summed up by the great critic.

Words are like leaves: and where they most abound, Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.”

We have seen what sort of occurrences are striking to Mr. Tupper; we have seen how precipitately he flings himself upon the ideas which they suggest; and it would not be difficult to foretell what kind of books would result from his manner of writing. Possessing some natural ability, improved by instruction at school and college, he could not fail to produce, now and then, whether from invention or imitation, something that was readable; but it was impossible By way of illustration, however, we will furthat he should compose so much and so hastily, nish our readers with a few samples from Mr. without writing a vast amount of common-place Tupper's writings. Let us begin with his Proor senseless trash. There have been men gifted verbial Philosophy, the work by which he is best with glowing fancies, fed with full streams of known, and which has the rare advantage of havlearning and knowledge whose literary achieve- ing been the product of his early energy, perments appear almost miraculous: but these effected by the experience of after years. We see forts belong to an order of intellect far different nothing in it but a heterogenious collection of from that of Mr. Tupper. The eagle may stoop old maxims, strung together with little or no confrom his eyrie and carry off the lamb in his tal-nexion, and without a key to reconcile their ocons; the crow, who essays to imitate him, will only entangle his claws in the fleece, and fall an easy prey to his captors.

casional contradictions. Whatever does not fall within this description is only a "bald disjointed chat" of the author with himself, uniting the A cursory examination of Mr. Tupper's works other portions as links of an old chain are tied will confirm our expectations. They extend to together with bits of rope. Take, for example, four volumes of some 400 pages each. They the following from "Love" and "Marriage." are in prose and verse: embracing poems of all sorts, sonnets, ballads, translations, didactic proverbs, and imaginative tales—and prose as vaHath a seducer known it? Can an adulterer perceive it? rious, consisting of stories, essays, visions, reve-Or he that seeketh strange women, can he feel its purity? ries, speculations and rhapsodies. It would be Or he that changeth often, can he know its truth? untrue to say that there was no wheat in all this Longing for another's happiness, yet often destroying its mass: but it is true that the chaff predominates so largely as to make the grain not worth the labor of threshing it out. We are fully convinced

Separating honesty from falsehood, weeding insincerity from friendship.

"And yet what shall I say? Is a sordid man capable of love?

own,

Chaste, and looking up to God as the fountain of tenderness and joy.

Quiet, yet floating deep, as the Rhine among rivers,
Lasting, and knowing not danger-it walketh with Truth
and Sincerity.

Love-what a volume in a word, an ocean in a tear,
A seventh heaven in a glance, a whirlwind in a sigh,

Give to merit, largely give; his conscious heart will bless The lightning in a touch, a millennium in a moment, thee."

What concentrated joy or woe in blest or blighted love!"

There is certainly no lack of hyperbole in the pyramid”—we opine it is much more like tilting last lines the fancy of the poet is all abroad. at a windmill. But he comes down to a very matter of fact view of things again, in the next extract.

But, in sober truth, what is all this worth? To cite no meaner book, what is there in it all, which is not found, condensed and compact, in

“When thou choosest a wife, think not only of thyself, the Hebrew Scriptures? Lay the book side by

But of those God may give thee of her, that they reproach thee not for their being;

See that he hath given her health, lest thou lose her early and weep;

side with Ecclesiastes or the Proverbs, and the proof will stare you in the face. We fully admit that the ideas are clothed in very different lanSee that she springeth of a wholesome stock, that thy lit-guage, and that there is much more of it. Mr. tle ones perish not before thee:

For many a fair skin hath covered a mining disease,

Tupper is something like the lilies of the field:

And many a laughing cheek been bright with the glare of for though he has toiled, and spun innumerable

madness.

coats of cobweb, yet truly "Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." The Very salutary cautions, undoubtedly: but some- solid wisdom of the sage has been hammered what unusual to be found in a love letter to a into foil too thin to hide the dull metal beneath. modest young girl from an inexperienced youth The pithy and sententious truth is diluted in a of seventeen. It must have been a source of sea of words, vast enough to satisfy the most high satisfaction to the chosen one, that she had diffusive Homeopathist. Whatever was once undergone a medical inspection so vigorous and substantial is soaked and sodden into thorough searching, and been found worthy after all to insipidity.* transmit to posterity the illustrious name aud fortunes of the house of-TUPPER.

We come now to regard Mr. Tupper in a phase in which we had never seen him until the ap

The author hath a becoming sense of the dig-pearance of this edition. In our business streets, nity of his calling: which he thus exalts, though of course with a protestation that he is not talking about himself.

'What, if the prophet lacketh honor? for he can spare that praise:

we sometimes meet with a sign such as "JOHN DOE, successor to RICHARD ROE," in the hardware or grocery line; the new trader thus soliciting the patronage of his predecessor's customers, and promising them a continuance of the good wares and fair dealing which had first attracted them. Mr. Tupper has imitated this laudable custom in his capacity of poet: but we are somewhat more than doubtful of his having fulfilled the implied conditions. We think he has undertaken a rather difficult business for any body to carry on successfully-one that is, beyond question, too much for his capacity. His sign runs thus-"GERALDINE: a Sequel to COLERIDGE'S CHRISTABEL: by Martin Farquhar Tupper, D. C. L., &c., &c." Yes! he is the self

The honest giant careth not to be patted on the back by pig-appointed successor, or executor, of Samuel Tay

mies;

Flatter greatness, he brooketh it good-humoredly: blame him,-thou tiltest at a pyramid:

Yet just censure of the good never can he hear without contrition:

Neither would he miss one wise man's praise, for scarce is that jewel and costly:

Only for the herd of common minds, and the vulgar trumpetings of fame,

If aught he heedeth in the matter, his honor is sought in their neglect," &c.

lor Coleridge: to complete his unfinished work: to settle his accounts with posterity, and receive the balance due him in posthumous fame. This at least implies an intimate knowledge of his affairs, and a familiarity with his own views of them, for which we should not have given Mr. Tupper credit at first, and which he is very far from proving to us in the course of his administration. Had a common stone-mason underta

Have a care, master Tupper! Take care how you despise the herd of common minds. Make not your auditory too select, lest it may chance to be even smaller than you reckon upon. As for ourselves, we do not disclaim the title of pigmies, and we forbear to pat you on the back: but we pray to suggest one emendation of the passage, in which you speak of "tilting at a tle all this bother." (Time.)

*In an English book-catalogue we noticed the other day, among the paragraphs that embellished it, the following specimens of "Irish Proverbial Philosophy," which we take to be as good as any page of Mr. Tupper's

"Money they say is the devil--and God is good, that he keeps it from us."

"Our old friend Tim with an e to his tail will soon set