While you fearlessly, but candidly, discuss the public conduct of public men, I hope you will exclude from your columns all personal slander against them or any other citizens, and never "You are, my friend, about to enter on as arduous, as thank- [ of extreme difficulty for conscientious editors. They are expectless, but, at the same time, as useful an occupation, when proper-ed blindly to follow their leaders; and unless they comply, ly conducted, and as pernicious, when otherwise managed, as their support is too often partially withdrawn, and rivals patronany other in the wide range of human industry. I say, "as ized against them. Hence a severe conflict between interest and thankless," with the most perfect conviction of the justice of the duty. I trust I need not say that you ought not, and I hope will epithet for do what you may, you cannot escape censure and not, so far violate your duty as to advocate measures which abuse. And unless you be more fortunate than the great majori- your conscience disapproves, however urged on you by partity of your collaborators, your remuneration will scarcely be zans-" Fiat justitia, ruat cælum." adequate to compensate the labor, the time, the talent, and the unceasing care and anxiety the office of editor imperiously demands. Under this view of the case, were your course not finally determined on, and could you derive a comfortable main-invade the sacred sanctuary of private life. tenance in any other occupation, I would use all my endeavors to dissuade you from embarking on the perilous ocean of politics as editor: But the die being cast, and your purpose immoveably fixed, I shall not waste remonstrance in vain, nor wantonly trespass on your patience. I shall pursue a course more suitable to the circumstances of the case, by furnishing you with hints that may enable you to accomplish your object in the most useful manner to the public, and the most satisfactory to your self. So far as experience qualifies a man for the office of Mentor, I have some pretensions to assume it in the present case, having been three times proprietor and editor of papers; and having necessarily, in that capacity, devoted much time and attention to the duties, the rights, and the privileges of the station. Do not, however, let this consideration have any undue influence on your career. Weigh well my advices, and so far as they are supported by reason and common sense, adopt them as rules of conduct--and no farther. Subject them to the strictest ordeal of investigation. Let all your energies and zeal be devoted to excite a national spirit, the want of which, wherever it prevails, produces the most pernicious consequences on the general welfare and prosperity. Were the angel Gabriel to descend from Heaven, and propose a plan calculated to produce the greatest possible good to the country, too many of our citizens would regard it through a party medium, and support or oppose it, as it coincided with or tended to counteract the views of their party! On this point the English stand proudly pre-eminent. Their parties are full as violent as ours on all local subjects--but all unite on great questions involving the national prosperity. "Go, and do thou likewise." Let no temptation of profit or friendship, ever induce you to disgrace your paper by puffs of worthless books. Let your commendation be known to be the result of conviction, and it will have its due weight with the reading world. But the indiscriminate eulogiums, too frequently bestowed on the republications of British works, many of them of little or no merit, are nau geous. From this duty you can claim no exemption. The types, the presses, and the paper of your journal hav- It is not enough for you to keep your paper open for the luc u ing been purchased with your money, the journal is, therefore, brations of correspondents on important topics--more is required your property, and subject to your control. But "prescrip- at your hands. As you possess the faculty of writing with facilition,"--that is, "custom, continued," according to the lexico-ty, it is your incumbent duty to aid in the discussion of such topics. graphic explanation, "till it has the force of law,"--subjects this control to some salutary restrictions. One of these, and the main one, is, that your fellow-citizens have a clear and indefeasible claim--not as a favor or kindness, but as a right...to the use of your paper, for the discussion of moral and political subjects, calculated to improve their morals, refine their manners, and promote their prosperity and happiness, provided the discussions be managed with decorum and propriety, and not protracted to an unreasonable length. This right, like your control, has its limits, some of which follow: A fair analysis of foreign intelligence; of the proceedings of congress; and of the state legislature, stripped of the verbiage in which they are commonly enveloped, is a grand desideratum, to which our editors generally do not pay sufficient attention. There is a peculiar knack in this eperation, which a man accustomed to the use of the pen, may easily acquire. Two editors of the old school, long since gone to that "country from whose bourne no traveller returns," William Goddard, formerly of this city, and Isaiah Thomas, the proprietor and editor of the Spy, published at Worcester, in Massachusetts, were distin While the remuneration for your painful labors will greatly depend on your advertisements, you cannot be expected to ex-guished in this department. Either of them was wont to comclude them for long-winded essays, particularly on subjects of inferior importance. When long essays on vital topics cannot with propriety be excluded, and their insertion would interfere with the room devoted to advertisements, let them be divided, and continued. When you are requested to publish any article likely to give rise to a demand for satisfaction, either legal or otherwise, insist on the author's allowing you to give up his name, should it be necessary. No man has a right to make you a scape-goat to be responsible for his acrimony. Without such a stipulation, it has been generally and justly regarded as base and unworthy, to betray the name of an author. press into half a column the essence of half a dozen packets. Avoid the tone of exaggeration which pervades too many of our newspapers. According to their statements, a stranger might be tempted to believe that our orators are at least equal to those of Greece and Rome. It cannot, in fact, be doubted that in our deliberative bodies there is a very great display of talent occasionally; and that we have orators who might advantageously compare with some of the shining lights of the British parlia ment. But they are not all Burkes or Sheridans, or Pitts, or Foxes, as might be supposed from the elaborate panegyrics bestowed on them. Be on your guard also against the same spirit of exaggeration which prevails respecting the numbers assembled in town-meetings. They are almost all “the most numerous," and "the most respectable," that ever were seen. Parties are inevitable under any form of government, where the people have the right of deliberating for themselves ;-they result, as a necessary consequence, from the diversity of opi-Cases have occurred of dozens being magnified into hundreds, nion which exists on all subjects As you propose to publish a political paper, you will have to choose your party, if you have not done so already, as I pre sume you have. It would be of inexpressible advantage, were the public papers open to decorous discussions on both sides of all questions, so as to enable their readers to make fair comparisons, and duly weigh the merits of the parties. But such a plan would be frowned down by zealots on both sides, and would involve the failure of any man who should undertake it. An attempt was made in this city, some years since, to carry on a paper on this plan. It was conducted with considerable ability; had a sickly existence for a few months; and then perished for want of support. Parties are frequently led astray by ultra men, for their own particular purposes and advancement. They [the parties] aberrate from their known and established principles. This is a case and hundreds into thousands, to dazzle people at a distance. This spirit of exaggeration belongs equally to both political parties. Contaminate not your paper with details of revolting or un⚫ mentionable offences, which, through inadvertence, occasionally offend the eye in some of our papers. And be rather sparing of the record of the murders, assassinations, and suicides, which have so greatly and so lamentably increased of late years, to the dishonor of our country. Be on the look out, and blazon forth, in the strongest light, every straggling instance of honor, liberality, generosity, grati. tude, self-devotion, &c., that you find in any of the papers of the United States, to excite a laudable spirit of imitation; a spirit, so far as liberality is concerned, that unfortunately slumbers so much as to require great exertions to excite it. Copy also the most remarkable cases of foreign liberality. Bear always in mind the admonitory lines of Shakspeare: "One good deed, dying tongueless, Slaughters a thousand, waiting on that; Your praises are our wages." A good feature in a newspaper would be occasional brief law cases, involving important principles. Some of the police reports are highly exceptionable. A poet's corner in your fourth page, would be an improvement. Besides gratifying the ladies, to whose taste sufficient attention is rarely paid by our editors, it would afford the advertisements in that page a chance of being seen; whereas they are now too commonly overlooked. A corner for anecdotes, bon-mots, repartees, &c., would fur. nish an agreeable variety, provided they did not savor too strongly of Joe Miller Redivivus. It is stated in the above article, that in 1605, "Capt. Smith came over, and remained three years." Now Smith, page 150, states that "on the 19th of December, 1606, we set sail from Black Wall, with the first supply in Virginia." Under the head Huguenots, it is stated that they settled in South Carolina in 1502. Now the term Huguenot had its origin in 1560. See Rees' Encyclopedia, 9th vol. It is also stated by Rees, (article Carolina,) that no permanent settlement seems to have been made in Carolina, until after the restoration of Charles II., who, by his first charter, dated 24th of March, 16621663, granted to Edward, Earl of Clarendon, and seven others, all the lands lying between the 31st and 36th degrees of north latitude, and extending westerly to the South Seas. Under the head, Newfoundland, it is Gilbert in 1583. Now Marshall, in his American Colonies, (page 13,) states, that in May, 1496, John Cabot sailed from Bristol, and discovered the islands of Newfoundland and St. John's. Some of our news printers have an aversion to copy articles from the papers of their neighbors. They pride themselves on their matter being " all original." This is truly absurd. I appeal to the most enlightened men in the nation, the Clays, the Websters, the Storys, the Sergeants, &c., to decide whether a good article copied from a rival print, be not preferable to an in-stated that that place was discovered by Sir Humphry ferior original one. The question between two articles ought not to be, which is original or which copied-but which is best calculated to answer the objects which an editor ought to keep in view-to instruct and delight---according to the rule of Horace.... "Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci, Lectorem delectando, pariterque monendo." Avoid the fatal error of neglecting the regular collection of your subscriptions. By this neglect many an editor has been straitened in his circumstances during his whole career, and finally died in poverty, while his books exhibited thousands to his credit. There is but one mode of effectually guarding against this pernicious result, and that is, stopping the paper as soon as the time for which the subscription has been paid has expired. There is not, I believe, any debt whatever, about the payment of which many of our citizens are so indifferent, as debts due for newspapers and advertisements; and, of course, there is scarcely any debt about which the creditor should be more on the qui vive. Uttamussack.-The author locates this place twelve miles above Richmond, near the James River. Now, Smith, (page 138,) locates it at Pamaunkee; and at page 117, says that fourteen miles northward from the river Powhatan is the river Pamaunkee. Smith says, that near Uttamussack is a temple, or place of Powhatan's. I think that this temple, was Orapakes. On his map you will find it near the head of Chickahomony, not far from Pamaunkee, in the direction of Cold Harbour, in Hanover. COLONIES. Under this head the author states, that "James But we must draw this brief notice to a close. Our Town sent out two colonies." One he locates six miles object was not to enter into a regular review, which from below Richmond. Now according to Smith, (page 236,) the desultory character of the work would be impos- West's colony was seated "by the Falles," "in a place sible, but merely to call attention to some few of its not only subject to the river's inundation, but round enprominent features. Many of the essays, have been vironed with many intolerable inconveniences." The published before in the form of communications to vari-author locates Kiquotan, near Norfolk; whereas, referous newspapers in Philadelphia and elsewhere-each essay containing in itself much to instruct, amuse and entertain. We commend it for what it purports to be-and in conclusion, remark, with a correspondent of Poulson's American Daily Advertiser. "I have no more to say except, that if the venerable author had been silent all the rest of his life, and not blessed by his labors, as he has done, all the departments of life, political, social, moral, &c., this little book would have been to his name and memory, what the star is to the morning and the evening-a brilliant which all see, and all delight to behold." THE TUCKAHOE COLONY OF VIRGINIA. ence to Smith's map will show that Kiquotan includes Hampton and Old Point. The author says that Williamsburg was laid off in the form of a W. It was not. Governor Nicholson proposed it; but it was not done. Secretary Nelson's house in York Town was demolished by the artillery of the combined armies; and not Governor Nelson's, as the author states. The latter is still in good preservation. The author, in his rude remarks on the country gentlemen who "have eaten up their estates; their property has gone down their gullets;" was unmindful of the old adage, nil nisi, &c., and must have forgotten that his maternal ancestors were included in his philippic. Chelsea, in the olden time, was a very hospitable mansion; and may have been "more generous than just." But I cannot agree with the author, that they were among those of whom he says, "fools make feasts, and wise men come to eat them." My attention has been called to a publication in your Messenger, for the month of April, 1837, under the My sole object in making this communication proabove title, which contains so many historical inaccura-ceeds from a desire to correct the errors of the author of cies, as to induce me to correct them. Where the writer of the article referred to, obtained his account of the above named colony, I am at a loss to know. Smith, in his second voyage up the Chesapeake, found a tribe of Indians called Tockwoghes, on the river Tockwogh. the Tuckahoe Colony. False statements, often published, will injure your valuable periodical. For all my historical corrections, I have given references;—these I consider indispensable. Chelsea, 1st June, 1839. C. C. M. THE COPY-BOOK-NO VIII. ATOMS. Don Quixotte was humane, generous, brave, learned, eloquent; yet withal he was worse than a cypher: a cypher would indeed have done no good, but Don Quixotte, by the want of a little common sense, has made the good ridiculous. While Sancho Panza was governor of the island of Barataria, one of the courtiers said to him "I am amazed how your worship is able to make such wise decisions, being so illiterate as you are; for I believe you do not even know your letters." If you put peas into a pan of water, the light and rotten ones come to the top, and this is the way that little great men rise in the world. When two clouds meet in the heavens, they produce Wisdom is more conspicuous when surrounded by rain; so when two emotions meet in the mind they folly, as foxfire shows best in the dark. produce tears. In some hearts there is a continual war between ava rice and liberality, but avarice generally proves victo There are two ways of 'getting up' in the world: the one is to raise one's self, the other to pull down others: the latter is the more easy. Some avail them-rious in the contest. selves of both. Historians commonly err in respect to causes and motives. They look for causes adequate and proportionate to the magnitude of the event; whereas the greatest events are often owing to circumstances the most insignificant. Ignorance is the mother of conceit, but modesty is the child of wisdom. The world seems some vast complex machine, continually revolving, and each day turning up some new event, to gladden or confound the insects on its surface called men. If there is a planet inhabited only by women, the first article in their Magna Charta is to secure the freedom of speech. The Persians are termed by the traveller Rich, a nation of dandy-assassins; Voltaire called the French monkey-tigers; the two epithets amount to the same thing, for a dandy is a monkey, and an assassin is a tiger. Lying is cumulative: one generates another, and that another still, in an infinite series,-a geometric progression of falsehood. A falsehood is like a stone in an arch, each one requires many others to support it. Truth, like the air, is the most precious of all things, and the least regarded. Extremes meet-as volcanoes vomit fire amid eternal snow. The difference between politeness and rudeness, is this: rude people speak ill of you, to your face-polite people wait till you are gone. If when two particular friends meet in company, all the worst things that they had said of each other were exposed, what droll looks would sometimes be seen. If a man contends that there is no such thing as truth in the world, I will admit it-at least as far as he is concerned. Power, wealth, and fame, are sweepstakes usually taken by the best jockey, not by the best horse. 'Barking dogs don't bite.' This adage seems to imply that unbarking dogs do bite.' The dogs then in the polar regions must be very fierce, for they never bark. Liberty is like a rope, in which (according to a superstition of the Laplanders,) the winds are tied up in three knots; loose the first, the wind is favorable; loose the second, it is still more favorable; loose the third, and there is a tempest. It would be a safe speculation, to buy vain men for what they are worth, and sell them for what they think they are worth. When I behold a lovely woman, I can well conceive, that" man was created little lower than the angels." Wit produces a smile,-humor laughter. When a writer asks your candid opinion of his works, you must know he will be very indignant at you if your candid opinion does not coincide with his own. The best way, sometimes, to keep a secret, is to tell it. It is very unfortunate some people mistake your wit for rudeness and their rudeness for wit. child. Books and dogs are friends you may count upon with certainty. Plagiarism among authors, is like stealing among the Lacedemonians-the criminality is not in the taking, but in the being caught. Politeness is like a pole that wagoners insert between their horses' heads, which serves at once to keep them together and to prevent them from coming too close together. We can believe nothing without evidence, and we can disbelieve nothing with evidence. The metal which wont bend will break, If the Greenlanders were invaded, they might adopt for their motto, pro aris et phocis.' There is but one step from the demagogue to the courtier. Farmers have been so long complaining of bad crops, it is strange they should still be expecting good ones. A rotten tree may stand erect while the winds are in their caverns, but the hurricane discloses the secrets of the forest. Houston has executed what Burr first planned. Poetry consists in the idea-verse may be prosaic, and prose may be poetic. The poet is like the maker of porcelain, who creates forms of beauty out of sand and clay. One reason why the ascent of mount Olympus is so difficult, is, that those who fail to get up themselves always confederate to obstruct the progress of others. An encyclopedia is fit only for a nation of Brobdingnags. Some cows give good milk, but have a trick of kicking the pail over. If we cannot have what we love, let us love what we | primitive state of ignorance and knew nothing of the have. arts of poetry. They should cease to reject our muse, because a thousand years have not elapsed since our We live not as we wish, but as we can. It is better to read a small book through, than not to national birth-when our poetry has no more to do read a big one at all. Life is a masquerade, and hypocrisy the domino. Oratory is employed only on great occasions, but good sense is needed every day. with our existence as a nation than christianity has itself. Man is by nature a poet, and poetry is alone the language of enthusiasm and passion, or of a lively fancy and brilliant imagination. These-other things being equal, which in the present case we contend they are He who buys what he doth not need, will need what must certainly be independent of length of political he cannot buy. existence; their dependance being solely on the degree of cultivation of the mind. The scale of mental cul This life seems like a ship on a voyage across a sea: the crew are variously occupied, but they are all advanc-ture is full as high in America as in England; and save ing each hour to their destination; their course is direct, the winds invariable, their progress incessant; the sails once set, never for a moment slacken, until the close of the voyage, when they are furled forever. Petersburg, August 1, 1839. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES C. C. OF LIVING AMERICAN POETS AND NOVELISTS. NO. VI. MARIA BROOKS. (Maria del Occidente.) that the revolutionary war has laid the foundation for a distinctive national character, which has ever since been gradually forming, and turning into channels diverging from that which originally burst from the maternal fountain, the current of American thought and genius, we are still one and the same people, and sub. jects of the same broad empire of mind. Two people who have the same literature, language, and religion, between them, cannot certainly present any strong points of difference, which can influence their letters. Truly, there is not such a wide difference between an intelligent and well educated Englishman, and an intelligent, well educated American. They must think and express themselves on most points, (out of politics,) very much alike. If they do not differ widely in talking prose, neither will they, it is inferable, in writing it. Why then should they in their poetry? The truth is, that the literature of both The term, "infancy of poetry," as applied to the countries is one and indivisible. We are one people, American muse, has neither force nor intelligible signi- one tongue, one kindred. The forms of governments fication; yet the phrase is constantly on the lips of may differ, but of the thought, never. The time is alboth Englishmen and Americans--by the one used apo-ready passed, when the superiority of the English logetically--by the other in a sense of lofty superiority-mechanic over the American, was a part of the latter's when with truth it can be applied only to the rude po-craft-creed: indeed, invention, if not also manual etical compositions of a nation just merging from a dexterity in giving shape to the cunning images of the savage state--for instance, perhaps, to the didactic and inventor's brain, now holds the superiority on this side lyrical muse of the Sacs and Foxes, or the fierce song of the water. The notion should be exploded, that of the ancient Goths. Nevertheless, England is reluc- assumes the English poet's brain to be of a substance tant to give us credit for any thing better than the more etherial than the American's-assigning the brain, crude effusions and irregular compositions alone, which soils and climates, as if it were a cauliflower. Until it marked the earliest era of her own demi-savage state, can be proven that Lord Byron, Tom Moore, nay, when her untaught ancestors gave vent to their warlike Milton, Scott, and all the glorious company of British enthusiasm and fierce passions in bursts of wild verse- poets, would not have had the same identical brains, extemporaneous compositions, as savage and unpolish- if their first breath had been drawn in the United ed as their savage composers. This arises, doubtless, States, we shall believe, and so must modest Jonathan, from her habit of forgetting, in her jealous maternal and roaring John Bull, that America can produce as anxiety to keep us in remembrance of our political good a poet as England. What our poets want-and childhood, that, as members of the social compact, we we have several who rank with the best English poetsare not a whit less civilized or less instructed than is only a posterity to do them justice! Not six of your herself. British poets, Mr. Bull, were known, as now they are known, till death had sealed their greatness. A poet's fame is peculiarly posthumous. In very truth, our country is so young, that nearly all its poets are still It is true, as a nation we are but an infant; but an infant, which, like Minerva, sprung into being in full armor, noble in stature, godlike in wisdom, and clothed with the glory of perfect strength and beauty. Ame-living. There are now seven American poets, who rica is indeed young; but the members which compose this infantile empire are coeval in civilization with the oldest nations of the earth. Equal with them, and be hind them in nothing-whether in religion, philosophy, science, or the literary arts. It is quite time that our literary friends the other side of the Atlantic, should cease to seek among us for the first rudiments alone of poetic composition, as if we were just emerging from a only want the sod to lie twenty years upon their noble breasts, to be universally known and ranked with the greatest poets of Great Britain. This is the true cause of your assertion, that we have no poets-they are all living. Verily it is, because they are and are not. Having been led, not inappropriately with our subject, into the foregoing remarks, by the recent perusal of an uncandid article in a late English Review, touch- | business, its circulation was limited. We have come ing American poetry, we now proceed, in conformity to across a Baltimore Review of that day, which declares the plan we have laid down in these hasty sketches, to some of the stanzas to be "the best ever written by say something of the fair poetess, whose graceful num- any female poet." Five years after its publication, the bers form the subject of the present paper. Mrs. London Literary Gazette also passed on it a handsome Maria Brooks, better known under her poetical name encomium. With this little volume, began the literary of Maria del Occidente, is of Welsh extraction, both existence of our poetess. It is entitled, from its two of her parents having been born of Cymbrian families. leading pieces, "JUDITH, ESTHER, and other PoEMS; Her grandfather emigrated to this country prior to the By a Lover of the Fine Arts," with a graceful and exrevolutionary war, and settled in Charlestown, where, ceedingly appropriate Italian motto, from METASTASIO. being a man of affluence, he constructed a stately man- In the two first poems, the authoress seems to have atsion, which for many years was the seat of hospitality tempted the description of two females differing entirely and refinement. But the war of the revolution sud- in mind and person, yet equal in excellence; choosing denly burst out, and with the ashes of Charlestown only so much of their respective histories as exhibit was mingled those of his abode. The subject of the the most prominent traits of their characters, while they present sketch was born in Medford, a few miles from offer her the most striking pictures of each. In Judith, Harvard College; the professors of which visited inti- she has delineated prudence, fortitude and decision, mately at her father's; and, doubtless, from their con- softened by a tincture of feminine sensibility. In Esversation, her young mind first imbibed its literary ther, a soul painfully alive to every emotion; a noble tastes. Thus it was, that before she was nine years of elevation of mind struggling with constitutional softness age, she had committed to memory large portions of and timidity. The fugitive pieces appear, most of Pope's Messiah; Milton's Comus; Addison's Cato; them, to have been written under the influence of vivid portions of Homer, Virgil, Ovid, and some of the trans-impressions. We will extract here and there a stanza lated tragedies of Racine; while those of Shakspeare from the principal poems, leaving our critical discussion and Otway were listened to by her with rapture. of the character of the writer's mind, when we come Many of these passages were committed to memory to consider her more elaborate work “Zophiēl.” long before their meaning could possibly be understood. Indeed, before she could read--for learning to read was a painful and difficult task to her she could recite numerous pieces from the most popular poets of the day. So completely and thoroughly was her mind, at length, imbued with poetry, that on being asked in her ninth year what she most wished for, replied, "to be a poetess." Her childhood was passed during a dark reverse of fortune, which was soon afterwards followed by the death of her father. At the early age of fourteen she was betrothed, and married as soon as her school education was thought finished. The few first years of her womanhood were passed in that sort of commercial affluence, which seldom, in this country, lasts long. The loss of several vessels at sea, in which her husband was concerned, was followed in succession by other losses on land, and these combined converted prosperity to misfortune. At this gloomy period the cultivation of poetry, begun in infancy, was again resorted to as an amusement and consolation. But the idea of writing it was not thought of, though at that time every periodical was full of the imitations of the metrical delineations of Sir Walter Scott-every piano accompanied the exquisite songs of Moore; the poems of Southey and Campbell were read with avidity; and the bitter and sweet of Byron were making their first impressions. Original composition, however, was the natural fruit of so long and ardent companionship with the works and minds of the best poets, and at the age of twenty, a poem in seven Cantos, octosyllabic, was speedily composed, but never published. Many smaller pieces of a light and lyric character followed, which were published anonymously; and in 1820, a small volume of poems appeared, after having been looked over and criticised by some of her literary friends, who were professors in Harvard University. The reception of this volume was sufficiently flattering to its writer, though for the want of some person to do the necessary From Judith.. DESCRIPTION OF JUDITH. Fair Judith walked, and grandeur marked her air; DESCRIPTION OF HER SON. Softly supine his rosy limbs reposed, As they had feared to hide the brilliance there. DESCRIPTION OF HOLEFERNES, &C. In languid posture the proud victor lay; Gem-broidered purple canopied his bed, Soft Pleasure's breath had warmed th' inactive day * All unadjusted from his couch he rose ; With leisure step indifferent he came. So many bowed beneath his conquering arms, |