much quiet, but very uniform worship, to a being called God; and here they make it one time. noisy with great waters at Versailles; at another, with Republic; at another, with soldiery, and uniformly round it, with a sort of Devil-worship at theatre, or Bal Mabil!

"Is there not something by chance, in this odd difference, worth the noting, as much as difference in hats or gloves! And may there not be a greater matter at the bottom of this difference, than French priest-craft, or Constitution-makers seem to dream of!"

"The fête is now ended. The pale, cold sky of May shows a star or two beaming mildly over the Arch of Triumph: they are the only lights. Three hundred thousand francs have been spent this day for lampions only..... Yet tomorrow these clappers of hands at fire-bouquet, will be sour-faced and asking for bread!

"Surely this is a strange people."

EDITOR'S TABLE.

It is with sad feelings indeed that we record the death of our esteemed friend, PHIlip Pendleton COOKE. He died on Sunday, 20th January, at his residence on the banks of the Shenandoah, at the age of 33. His illness was short, and the announcement of its fatal termination fell with appalling weight upon hearts unprepared for so terrible a blow. In the little family circle which he adorned, the death of Mr. Cooke will be felt as a calamity of the most distressing character, but we should not rudely disturb the sanctity of domestic grief by indulging in any reminiscences of his private virtues. As a poet, whose mind was cheered with frequent visitings of the sublime and beautiful, and who delighted in tracing the bright footsteps of God upon the whole creation, his

loss will be lamented by the "sisters of the sacred well;"

and it will not be denied us to utter the expression of our sorrow over his early grave

For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.

The poems which Mr. Cooke left behind him are not the effusions of a mere versifier. He did not write, as do

cing at stated intervals, a certain number of lines, wearisome and lifeless to the last degree, that leave the reader sadder and duller than before. But a brilliant tide of thought which he could not repress perennially gushed it became poetry. Hence though his verse was not always perfect in rhythmical flow, it was full of nerve, spirit, imagination and elegance, unmistakable promptings of "the vision and the faculty divine." This poetic sensi

forth from his mind and when it found utterance in words,

bility joined to a love of the old romances, wrought out tarian cast of the age, but exhibiting a "brave pomp" akin to the prose-march of the ancient chronicler, and overflowing with the best inspirations of song. Few productions of the American muse present a sweeter vision to the view than the proem to this volume: the young Emily with the hazel eyes, from which speak out "a thousand sweet humanities," is seen as in an old cabinet picture with the hues of early womanhood like a halo around her. No one can read the "Froissart Ballads" without the conviction that had the life of the author been spared he would not have failed to produce some imperishable work of genius.

the "Froissart Ballads"-a volume ill-suited to the utili

The intelligent reader will have been convinced from the foregoing passages that "The Battle Summer" deserves all the praise we have given it. If he should get the volume (as we hope he many of our modern authors, to arrange in metre the orwill) he will be sorry to arrive so soon at the con-dinary impressions of every-day experience, thus produclusion of the "Reign of Blouse" which termiuates on the eve of the sad events of June-finding consolation in the fact, however, (stated in an appended note of the publishers) that the companion volume, "The Reign of Bourgeois" will be issued early in the spring. And now, Mr. Ik. Marvel, sitting in your comfortable study on the Fifth Avenue, correcting proof-sheets with the air of an old litterateur, we have a word querulous though not angry, for your ear; ecoutez. Why, in the much-abused name of Archbishop Whateley, have you so marred a good native style by forced inversions, oddly-compounded words, unnatural forms of expression and all the grotesqueness and bizarrerie of Carlyle? There are better models, be assured, if indeed there were need of your imitating any one. You did not learn this in the shady groves of old Yale, for your "Fresh Gleanings" did not so outrage the English of your fathers and you have written Among the fugitive efforts of our friend are one or two "Florence Vane" has of late an article, in our own Messenger,-The exquisite poems of the affections. Bachelor's Reverie-whose simple pathos was fastened itself like a household word upon the universal expressed in the most beautiful and touching memory and will probably live as long as any similar scrap of verse of the present century. The lines to his words that ever came out of Dr. Johnson. little daughter we cannot forbear to quote, as a suggestion Why, Sir, the thing out-Herods Herod, and leaves of paternal love that will strike a holy chord in the bothe Sartor Resartus very far in the distance. som of every father. Our readers will mark the exceedOne would think that you had taken the pledge ing beauty of the lines italicised. against the definite article and had studied the idiom of Babel amid the confusion of tongues. Oh, reform it altogether. Let us have the Reign of Bourgeois" undefaced by such conceits-a worthy casket for the gems that you are now rubbing up to be therein enshrined. But tiens-we have done.

"To My Daughter Lily."
"Six changeful years are gone, Lily,
Since you were born to be

A darling to your mother good,
A happiness to me.
A little shivering, feeble thing
You were to touch and view,

NOTICES OF NEW WORKS.

PHILO: AN EVANGELIAD. By the author of 'Margaret; A Tale of the Real and Ideal.' Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Co. 1850.

The Commissioners appointed by the Governor of Virginia under the act providing for the erection, on the Capitol Square in this city, of a suitable monument to GEORGE WASHINGTON, are about to make a choice from among the numerous plans for that structure submitted to their consideration. We have seen many of these drawings and models, and while we have no right to interfere in a matter peculiarly within the province of the Commission, we beg respectfully to offer a single suggestion We have risen from the perusal of this volume in a painto be weighed by these gentlemen in determining their ful state of doubt and perplexity. We do not know what choice of plan and position. We have in the Capitol, be- should be done with its author. Whether justice would longing to the Commonwealth, a most life-like and finely be satisfied by simply putting him in the stocks as an obwrought statue of the greatest of her sons. This statue ject of public derision, or whether some more decided punis exquisite as a work of art and more precious than a Phi-ishment, such as the knout, the bastinado, or the thumbdian relic, aye, beyond the Venus or Apollo, or the richest screw, should be administered, is a question of exceeding sculpture of Ionian chisels, as the only faithful effigy of delicacy. The offence of writing such a book is a very Washington! It is a fact that is not generally known, or if grave one, and clearly without the pale of critical judgknown not properly considered, that this invaluable memo-ment; yet as we would be merciful that we may obtain rial stands in a building which, by accident or design, may mercy, we would ask for its author only such mild and any night be laid in ashes. If the Capitol should burn, the humane treatment as is consistent with the due application removal of the statue would be impossible. Its weight, of the reviewer's lash. the exposed situation in which it stands, many feet from either entrance, but where the flames from any portion of the edifice would first find their way by force of draught, and the difficulty of getting at it by reason of the iron barrier that surrounds it,-all forbid the supposition that it could be removed. The destruction of Canova's Washington at Raleigh in the burning of the State House, and of the statue of Alexander Hamilton in the Merchants' Exchange, during the great fire at New York, would seem to indicate, plainly enough, the fate of our own statue in the event that the Capitol should be burnt. Our suggestion therefore is this-let an appropriate pedestal be provided in the Monument about to be commenced, for this statue-where it may remain, beyond the reach of harm, unless by some convulsion of nature, for ages-to hand down to the remotest posterity the features of the only man who ever gave to the highest earthly station a lustre all his own, quenchless through the revolving cycles of time. If it should be objected to this that the statue was placed where it stands to keep ever before the legislators of the Commonwealth the image and bright example of the mighty dead, we would say, then, at least, place it temporarily in a position of safety, until a new and inde⚫structible state-house shall be built, when it might again be erected as a palladium of our constitutional liberties in the halls of our Capitol. We make this suggestion with great deference to the Commissioners of the Monument and we invite our brethren of the newspaper press through the State to give us their opinions on the subject.

The performance opens with a street-scene in a village. Charles, a villager out shopping for his wife, and Philo meet, and after a few words of salutation, part again. The latter having remarked that it was a fine day, fit for the visitation of some celestial being, suddenly falls in with the angel Gabriel, who pops unexpectedly around a corner, and thereupon commences to inflict upon the said angel a series of most original observations on war, slavery, and other evils. Gabriel himself is not silent, but replies to certain questions propounded by Philo in a style of angelic simplicity and clearness. Let us take ex. gratia, the following lucid account of the mission of the heavenly host.

"Philo. Tell me of Angelage."

(Angelage we suppose is a new coinage for the condi tion of angels.)

"Gabriel. O'er will of mortals we do not preside;
That is prerogative of God alone;
Nor sermons preach, nor life lay down, like Christ.
An influence we, like memory of youth,
That combs in sea-like, on the reef of feeling,
Charming the soul with an immortal hope.
Anon, as midnight music we arrest
The ear of sin, and make the wanton pause;
We writhle from the skies in maple keys."

Is not this as clear as mud?

Gabriel now conducts Philo, as Mephistopheles did Faust, over all creation and several other places, going down into the region of departed spirits, where they meet the Devil, and learn from that respectable individual that he is no other than the Wandering Jew whose adventures have been written by the French romancer. They are also informed that angels never "fell from their first estate" as some of us have erroneously supposed. After a while We acknowledge with pleasure the handsome we have a plentiful introduction of new characters, gobmanner in which our friend of THE KNICKERBOCKER is lins, soap-boilers, runaway-negroes, clergymen, Nemepleased to speak of us. Praise from such a source is sis, War, Faith, Hope, Love and a poet, whose mistress, worth something. If it were necessary, we could have Wynfreda, and Annie, the chere amie of Philo himself, are the heart to give it back tenfold. But the venerable Maga the principal females of the narrative. All these heteroof the North (we are about the same age, so that the term geneous personages do nothing but talk, and their remarks is used legitimately) needs not our commendation. Be- are discursive enough to embrace the entire range of husides, we have not sea-room to express our good opinion of man and infernal thought-the diablerie and the humanity it here and to discuss its merits in a single paragraph being equally intelligible with the spirituality of which we would be "flat burglary as ever was committed." May have already given a specimen. The end of all this is that St. Nicholas ever have you under his august protection, the Saviour appears at the Judgment Day, on the 226th and may your shadow never be less, oh, worthy patri- page, and by an ingenious abstraction converts all the arch of magazines! wicked into angels, and dooms all wickedness to the

flames so that the Millenium commences where the vol- literary triumvirate who undertook the publication of ume terminates. these volumes. The promised biography from the pen of Mr. James Russell Lowell turns out to be nothing more than a short notice published in Graham's Magazine for February 1845-a performance full of a silly pedantry and made up of the merest commonplaces of criticism. Mr. Griswold has done literally nothing in the way of bi

Seriously this is a correct analysis of "Philo, an Evangeliad." What the aim of the writer is we are unable to discover, or whether indeed he has any, for we cannot suppose that the absurd moral lectures on "the horrors of war" and the iniquity of slavery were designed for any practical effect. A fugitive slave is introduced, who jumps|ographical contribution, although we suspect that he did

into the river and drowns himself, whereupon the angel
Gabriel thus discourseth:

"Gabriel. Behold that bubble rising from the wave;
The death gasp mounts, dilating; 'tis on fire;
A flaming wheel it rolls along the air;
It glows as if a thousand ovens burned:
We'll follow it; a meteor incensed,

It shoots athwart the land; all eyes are drawn
To it. It bursts; the blazing shreds, like hail,
Are scattered. People build a wondrous pyre,
And, lo! whips, fetters, and all instruments
And signs of slavery are cast thereon."

We can not, of course, expect so bold a thinker as the author of Philo to conform to the requisitions of the English Grammar, so that we shall not refer to the wayward disposition of his adverbs or the eccentric traits of his participles. In this respect, as in all others, he has only intensified the poem of Festus, going beyond Mr. Bailey in every absurdity, without one redeeming trait of the frenzied English bard. On the whole we commend the volume to the anti-slavery faction of our Northern States for whom it is especially fitted by its blasphemy and its transcendentalism.

"Philo" may be found at the bookstore of G. M. West & Brother, under the Exchange Hotel.

all the drudgery of the work, correcting proof-sheets and bringing his really good taste to bear upon the arrangement of the materials. It was with Mr. Griswold purely a labour of charity, and we could wish that he had taken the whole affair into his own hands. Mr. Willis's portion of the "Life" comprises five pages, being an editorial from the Home Journal with a note or two of Poe and the letter of Mr. Griswold in the Tribune, interwoven. We repeat that we are greatly disappointed, but we have the consolation to know that, as Dr. Johnson's ghost says, "parturient mountains have ere now produced muscipular abortions." These volumes are handsomely printed and contain all the works of Poe that will live. For sale by J. W. Randolph & Co.

BOHN'S LIBRARIES.

We perform a pleasant duty in commending to our readers the series of standard works in course of publication by HENRY G. BOHN, York Street, Covent Garden, tion of Knowledge in the nineteenth century than the London. There is no surer evidence of the popularizasuccess which has attended the efforts of this enterprising bibliopole to introduce works of a high class into general use, and which has enabled him to place them within the reach of everybody. A few years since, these books were to be obtained only by those whose means were unlimited, or to be seen, as a matter of favor, by such alone as had access to the best libraries. Now, a few shillings will enable the student, on both sides of the Atlantic, to place them upon his shelves. Among the recent novelties from the establishment of Mr. Bohn we notice a luxurious edi

THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA, To the Middle of the 19th Century. By Rufus Wilmot Griswold. Tenth Edition. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart. 1850. We were not honored with a copy of this edition of the tion of Lodge's Portraits of Illustrious Personages of American Parnassus from editor or publishers, but we are of their lives and actions. This work will be complete Great Britain, with Biographical and Historical memoirs none the less disposed to say a word or two in its favor on in eight volumes (of which two are before us) and will that account. We commend the work, because we con- contain in all, 240 portraits, beautifully engraved on steel. sider it an amiable labour to arrange in an orderly muse- We can recollect the day when the man who was able to um specimens of our home-production in verse, just as deed; now the engraver is "abroad" as well as the "schoolbuy "Lodge's Portraits" was thought a lucky fellow insamples of cotton and woollen fabrics are arranged in a master," and the humblest workman may have it." The show-room for exhibition, with tickets affixed, (answering Antiquarian Library" of Mr. Bohn embraces editions of to the biographical sketches of the poets,) by way of set- the old Chronicles from the days of the venerable Bede, ting forth the manufactories from which they come. Per- supplying a want that has long been felt by scholars. haps, indeed, it might puzzle us, to say which sort of fus- The latest works of this series are Brand's Popular Antiquities, in three volumes, edited by Sir Henry Ellis, one tian is most to our taste. We are very far, however, from of the authors of the Pictorial History of England, and wishing to undervalue the office of Mr. Griswold-for" Roger of Wendover's Flowers of History" in two volwhen we consider the draughts made upon his humane and charitable nature by importunate candidates for admission into the temple of the muses, we can only wonder that he has done so well. A few who in former editions were kept shivering in the vestibule, have been admitted within the great hall at last, and we have now one hun-derfully preserved the spirit of the majestic originals. dred poets with the freedom of the edifice. It is possible that had he guarded the entrance as strictly as the inquisitor in Goldsmith's reverie, who excluded Hume from the Fame stage-coach, the number would have been much smaller. We honor him, however, for the vigilance he has already manifested, and we ask for his book a large circulation.

THE WORKS OF THE LATE EDGAR ALLAN POE: with
Notices of his Life and Genius. By N. P. Willis, J. R.
Lowell, and R. W. Griswold. In two volumes. New
York: J. S. Redfield, Clinton Hall, 1850.

umes, containing a pleasant account of brave deeds in the time of the Crusades. In the "Classical Library," unification to the elegant translations of the Greek tragedies form with the other series mentioned, we reter with gratiof Eschylus and Sophocles. These productions are laid before the reader in an English dress which has wonthe happy effect of directing the literary intelligence of We trust that their diffusion in this cheap form will have the country to the careful study of Athenian models. A pleasant book will be found in the "Extra Volume" of "Count Hamilton's Fairy Tales," which contains an engraved likeness of the author in his flowing wig, lookAnd that all tastes may be pleased, we mention lastly ing like the Lord Chancellor of the realm on the woolsack. the rhapsodical work of Lamartine on the Revolution of 1848, which is furnished at the low rate of 87 cents, with a frontispiece representing the heads of the members of the Provisional Government. All the publications of Mr. Bohn are furnished to the trade and to individuals by Messrs. Bangs, Platt & Co, 204 Broadway, N. Y., the American agents. Gentlemen desiring to purchase for private libraries will find it to their advantage to order di

We have been sadly disappointed in the labours of the rectly from this house.

PUBLISHED MONTHLY AT FIVE DOLLARS PER ANNUM-JNO. R. THOMPSON, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR.

VOL. XVI.

RICHMOND, MARCH, 1850.

WILLIAM GODWIN.

BY H. T. TUCKERMAN.

NO. 3.

social life, the laws of well-being and the resources of nature in her relation to humanity. This has become the noblest and most auspicious office of the literary reformers.

Byron laughed at the idea of any one being There comes a time to every thinker and en- seriously injured by a book, and Napoleon prothusiast, when he instinctively questions the cir- fessed to regard literary talent as an abstraction. eumstances that surround him, the relations in Doubtless, when tried according to strict utility, which he finds himself, and the social obligations many of the aspects of literature are merely that seen an inevitable and inherited necessity. tasteful and curious; and there is some justificaThis happens when some natural want or honest tion for the low estimate in which men of pracopinion or conscious right is thwarted by these tical science and efficient action hold its pursuit. arbitrary regulations; or when a great and ob- If we glance over the literary history of any navious social wrong presses heavily upon a fel- tion, we find that its agency is limited, that it low creature, and the injustice awakens his sym- serves as a representative oftener than an initiapathy. The reflections incident to such expe- tive purpose, and chiefly gives us insight into the rience, usually convince the liberal mind that mental tastes and habitudes of an epoch or a there is vast injury bequeathed by custom; that race. Thus, it is a pleasing task to follow the prejudice, fear, and indolence, only hinder society intellectual growth of the South of Europe from from discarding a yoke, that dwarfs the intellect, the crude and picturesque ballad, to the classic and narrows the heart of its members; and that epic or tragedy; or to behold the entire spirit of an infinite need of reform exists. In some breasts an age embodied by the poet in vivid and lasting the conviction thus engendered, is temporary; colors; but we cannot fail to perceive that at the others are reconciled to it by the idea of neces- very time these master-pieces were fashioned, sity; the many soon learn how to evade or com- the war, the intrigue, the political and social promise the particular evil that interferes with economy of the nation proceeded uninfluenced their developement; and only in the few is there by the labors of bard or philosopher, who reaped bred a permanent spirit of resistance, a solemn their harvest, even of fame, only at a subsequent determination to keep individuality intact, or a period. The relation of the writer to his age is generous passion to ameliorate the condition or often intimate without being essential-in what enfranchise the life of society. The majority of may be called the ornamental branch of letters. reformers, too, dedicate themselves to a special Men of action sway the people. Events operate cause and promote it by the machinery and the more directly than ideas; and the scholar is often arts of faction; so that the number is very se- conscious that his position is isolated and comleet, who attempt to strike at the root of social paratively unimportant. Yet it is to be rememevil by reference to first principles, who boldly, bered that all literature does not consist of fanyet with discrimination, institute an inquiry into ciful creations, that it is not exclusively an art. the claims of a law, the authenticity of a cus- The sonnet, the play, and the chronicle may only tom, or the sanction of a practice that interferes serve an occasional, a recreative, or, at best, a with the primal interests of humanity. The conservative end; the bard may only most extravagant discussions of this kind were his graver friends;" and the tangible deed may Literature, excited by the French Revolution, which by re- wholly overwhelm the airy word. ducing social life to its chaotic elements, seemed in short, may, in the practical world, assume no to furnish new avenues of truth and opportuni- higher agency than that of a graceful diversion; ties for reform. The atrocities, however, of that yet its whole significance is not thus exhausted; terrible experiment caused a reaction so power- it is capable of another office. If, chameleonful as to strengthen the position of the conserva-like, it takes its hue from the immediate and the tive. As the ferment subsided, reason soon transitory, it also may be inspired by character, equalized the inferences of both extremes of and become the medium of truth. The writer, opia:on; and thus, in the end, promoted the ad- if ordained to entertain, to celebrate and to repvancement of truth; and the result has been resent, is likewise endowed to enlighten, to ina more wise examination of the principles of spire, and to reform. Formerly the latter aim

VOL. XVI-17

"amuse