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Thoas. Thou sprung from Kings, thou hast no stronger | Her chosen Priestess. But may Dian Pardon claim

Upon my favor or my confidence

Than when unknown. My offer I renew.
Then go with me and share in all I have.

Iphigenia. My King, how can I hazard such a step?
The Goddess who preserved me, she alone
Has claims on my devoted life. She chose
This as my place of refuge, and, perhaps,
Reserves me for the solace and delight
Of the declining years of one whom she
Enough has punished. Who knows, even now,
That my deliverance is not at hand,
If I, unmindful of her holy will,

Thwart not her plan. Devoutly have I asked
A sign by which her pleasure may be known.
Thoas. It is a sign that here thou still remainest.
Seek no excuses, for they speak in vain,
Who would involve denial in smooth words.
The baffled suitor only hears the "No."

Iphigenia. My trust is not in words that only dazzle. I have disclosed to thee my inmost heart:

And knows not thine own heart how mine must yearn
To see my Father-Mother-Brother--Sister-
To see, in that old hall, where sorrow still
May sometimes lisp my name, Joy's reign restored,
Twining its columns with fresh blooming wreathes,
As for one newly born? Oh! send me thither,
And give new life to them, to me, to all.

Thoas. Go then. Obey thy wilful heart, and spurn
The voice of Heaven and of friendly counsel.
Be quite a woman. Yield thee to the impulse
Which, unrestrained, hurries her where it will;
For let but passion burn within her bosom,
No holy tie can keep her from the arms
Of him who lures her from the faithful care
Of Father or of Husband. Let that sleep,
And golden-tongued persuasion pleads in vain,
Tho' urged sincerely, and enforced by reason.

Iphigenia. Oh! King, bethink thee of thy noble word, Nor let my confidence be thus requited.

I thought thee well prepared to hear the truth.

Thoas. I was; but not for this-so unexpected!

But what else could I look for? Knew I not

I had to deal with woman?

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O King! against our sex. It is indeed
Not lordly, like your own, but not ignoble

Are Woman's weapons. Trust me that in this

To thee I am superior, that I know,

Better than thou, that which should make thee happy.
Full of fond hope as well as good intentions,

Thou urgest me to yield: and I have cause
To thank the Gods that they have given me firmness
To shun a union not approved by them.

Thoas. It is no God that speaks. 'Tis thy own heart.
Iphigenia. 'Tis only through the heart they speak to us.
Thoas. Should not I hear that voice as well as thou?
Iphigenia. It speaks in whispers, and the storm out-

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My fault, that I so long, against our Law

And my own conscience, have withheld from her
Her ancient sacrifice. From oldest times
Death was the certain doom of every stranger,

Who touched this shore; till thou with blandishments,

In which I thought I saw a daughter's fondness,
And hoped at length to see the silent love

Of a young bride, beguiled me from my duty,
Spell-bound, with magic bonds and rocked to sleep,
That I heard not the murmurs of my People.

But now they charge my Son's untimely death
But as a visitation on my guilt,

And I no more for thy sake will restrain

The crowd that clamors for the sacrifice.

Iphigenia. Not for my sake I asked it. He, who thinks
The Gods delight in blood, mistakes them widely,
Charging on them his cruel purposes.

Did not the Goddess save me from the Priest,
Preferring to my blood my service here?

Thoas. 'Tis not for us, with ready sophistry
To mould our holy usage to our will.

Do thou thy duty. Leave me to do mine.
Two strangers, in a cave near to the Sea,
Have just been found concealed. They bring no good.

I hold them captive, and the injured Goddess
Shall take them as her due,-(the first that offer,)
For sacrifices now so long delayed.

I send them hither, and thou knowest the rest.

[Exit.]

Iphigenia. Thou hast clouds, my kind deliverer,
Clouds to screen afflicted Virtue,
Winds to waft the victim, rescued
From the iron hand of Fate,
Aross the land-across the Ocean.
Wise art thou to scan the future;
Still to thee the past is present;
And thine eye upon thy servants
Rests, as thy light, the life of night,
Calmly rules the silent earth.

O! withhold my hand from blood!
No Peace, no blessing can attend it.
Though slain by chance, the victim's spectre
Haunts the casual perpetrator

To dog and fright his hour of wo.
For good men to the Gods are dear,
Wherever such on earth are found;
And they this fleeting life vouchsafe
To mortals, whom they freely suffer
To share with them the cheering aspect
Of their own eternal Heaven.*

[END OF ACT I.]

The translator is aware that this hymn sounds strangely in English. Perhaps it will be as unacceptable to his readers as to himself. It was his wish to have preserved the measure, giving a rhyming close to the lines, but he relinquished this purpose in compliance with the request of a German friend, at whose suggestion he undertook the translation. It was the wish of that gentleman to exhibit Goëthé to the American public in a dress resembling as nearly as possible his German costume. His metre, therefore, is exactly copied throughout. Hence, too, the translation is literal to a fault, as it sometimes happens that certain words are quite unpoetical in one language, while the corresponding word in another is consecrated by custom to the Poet's use. The translator is not conscious of any greater liberty than that of rendering "grasp" for "faust" "fist," and "nod" for "wink," which means the same in German as in English.

INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT LAW. Views in regard to an extension of the privileges of Copyright in the United States, to the citizens of other countries, in a Letter to the Hon. Isaac E. Holmes, of South Carolina, member of Congress. By the author of "The Yemassee," "The Kinsmen," " Richard Hurdis," " Damsel of Darien," &c. HON. I. E. HOLMES:

that it has honored the country abroad, and has been serving it at home; and that, to American authorship, not yet thirty years old, the nation is largely indebted for much of its public morality, its private virtues, its individual independence, and that social tone which prevents the absolute and general usurpation of opinion, in matters of taste, by foreign and inferior models;-to the rank influence of which we are particularly exposed by the premature and excessive growth of our commercial tendencies.

House of Representatives, Washington. DEAR SIR-You have done me the honor to request my views of the effect of the Copyright Law, as it exists at present, upon the interests of I trust that it will not be demanding too violent domestic authorship, and of such an extension of a concession from any citizen, when we assume, its privileges, as will enable the citizens of foreign that a Literature of some kind is absolutely necountries to partake of its securities, in common cessary to every nation that professes to be civiwith our own. Upon a subject of so much doubt lized. It is, perhaps, the highest, if not the only and disputation, I should have been better pleased to refer you to more experienced writers than myself-to those whose greater knowledge of the business of Literature, and higher distinction in its walks, would entitle them to speak with more authority, and with less doubtful claims to the respect and consideration of the country. But, re-ed, and on sufficient grounds, that a people, who garding the question as a vital one, and in the silence of those whom I myself should much prefer to hear, I do not feel altogether at liberty to decline the task to which I am invited. Believing, as I do, that the condition of the law as it now stands, endangers, and will long continue to jeopard, the best interests of the country, as regards its intellectual progress, not less than the minor, but still important interests of the American author, considered simply as an individual,-I feel, as an additional incentive to your application, the sense of a pressing, not to say imperious duty, which obliges me to speak. I am not conscious, however, that I can throw any new lights upon the subject. I do not know that I can furnish one additional argument to those which have been so frequently set before the American people, and, seem-guising the pernicious influence, which, to this day, ingly, in vain; but, I can, at least, in good faith, present an additional witness in the cause, and array, in simple order, those suggestions of my reason and my experience, which have inclined me, ⚫ after frequent deliberation, to place myself on the present side of the question.

definite proof of national civilization. It is contended that a foreign Literature is not only not enough for the wants of such a people, but that, in all cases where it is suffered to supersede their own, it must prove ultimately fatal to their moral, if not their political independence. It is contend

receive their Literature exclusively from a foreign land, are, in fact, if not in form, essentially governed from abroad ;—that their laws are furnished, if not prescribed, by a foreign and, frequently, a hostile power; and that, as it is only through our own minds that we can be free, so, when these are surrendered to the tutelage of strangers, we are, to all intents and purposes, a people in bondage.

The proposition, however startling it may seem, is by no means too strongly put. Unhappily, our own national experience furnishes us with an illustration, which is beyond the denial of the most bigoted mind. It applies, with singular force and directness to the actual relation, in which we have long stood, and still measureably stand, to the controlling intellect of Great Britain. There is no dis

she maintains over our moral and mental character. There is no concealing, as there is no defending, the odious servility with which a large portion of our population, in the great cities, contemplate her haughty aristocracy; borrow their affectations, ape their arrogances, adopt their prejudices, and shackle Perhaps, as a preliminary to this discussion, im- themselves, hand and foot, in the miserable folds portant, if not absolutely essential to a just percep- of their meretricious and highly artificial society. tion of all its bearings, it would be well to take a The disgusting meanness which hangs upon the hasty survey of the past history and present con- heels of her travellers, which beslavers them with dition of American Literature. It is important to caresses, and, subsequently, requites their natural show, that something has been done by native au- scorn with blackguardism, is shocking to the nathorship, to justify what might else seem to be an tional pride and debasing to the national characimportunate and impertinent clamoring at the doors ter. Unhappily, though I am pleased to think of Congress, for a species of bounty and shows of that the great body of our people, particularly favor, for the benefit of those who can exhibit no the rural portions-revolt at such proceedings and proper title to consideration. We admit the ne- keep from participation in them, the few who are cessity, on the threshold, of showing that Ameri- guilty of this servility find too facile a sanction for can Literature, is not a name merely, but a thing;— its exercise, in the readiness with which, as a whole,

that it has been a thing of works and triumphs ;

we receive the opinions, adopt the laws, and bor

row the institutions of a country, the entire habits, among us, and to justify our complaint, is, unhapand objects of which are singularly adverse to the pily, beyond all question. Such a condition of leading ideas upon which our own government is dependence must always prove a difficult, but not, founded. We still, as a people, entertain most of I trust, an impassable barrier to the moral prothose feelings of implicit deference for the men gress of any nation which has not gone through an and measures of Great Britain,-her opinions and infancy of its own. Its feelings, tone and characsome of her worst prejudices-which distinguished ter, however different may be its necessities, its our provincial dependency upon her; and so con- objects, its climate and condition, will still be imscious is she of this fact, that, but recently, within pressed and determined, in the absence of an indea few months, one of her leading reviews has had pendent native Literature, by all the qualities which the audacity to assert, that we cannot confer repu- marked it as a colony. The mere severance of tation at all; that domestic opinion, in the United that public interest which bound it to the maternal States, cannot, in Literary History, distinguish a nation, by no means constitutes mental, or even favorite son;-that the verdict of British autho- political independence; and the enfranchised peority is absolutely necessary before we can dare ple, may, in most respects, be as thoroughly, if not take to our hearts, and acknowledge with pride, as explicitly, the subject people still, as at that the intellectual achievements of a native. Mr. humiliating period when their proudest distinction Alison, in his recent History of Europe,-a work was to prove their loyalty under stripes, and to add in which it is difficult to say whether the ignorance, the tribute of free gifts, to the unsparing exactions or the malignity of the author, in all that concerns of a power of which they felt little but the weight. the United States, is greatest,-adds his testimony It was the policy of the Mother Country then, as to the same effect. He says, "Literature and it is her hate now, which sought to keep down the intellectual ability of the highest class meet with national intellect, to suppress thinking, to throw little encouragement in America, the names of every impediment in the way of knowledge, and Cooper, Channing and Washington Irving, indeed, to perpetuate her tyranny over American industry, amply demonstrate that the American soil is not by paralyzing, to the utmost extent of her power, wanting in genius of the most elevated and fasci- the original energies of American genius. The nating character, but their works are almost all declaration against printing presses and newspapublished in London—a decisive proof that Euro-pers, so bluntly made by one of the Colonial Gopean habits and ideas are necessary to their due vernors-Berkeley, of Virginia-was the insidious, development." As if the same writers, and a if unavowed, principle of the powers which he thousand more, were not also published in Ame- represented, in all that related to the concerns of rica! But the assertion, and not its correctness, is America. That the colonies should be officered what we have to deal with. That it is not wholly from abroad-that the provincial should neither correct, we know—that it is sufficiently so, how- preside in the cabinet, nor command in the field, ever, to prove the servility of an influential class was one of the admirable means by which she * The ability to create, should be, we think, prima facie contrived for so long a season to maintain this evidence of an equal ability to judge of the thing created. policy. It was this portion of her scheme, howThe country which produces the genius cannot be incapa- ever, more than any other-more than tea-acts or ble of determining his degree. One faculty seems inevita- stamp-acts, or butcher acts-that led to the final bly to involve the other. The reflection of a single mo- throwing off of her authority. It was the native ment would stifle the absurdity which denies it; and, if it

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cannot silence the malignant sneer of our enemies, should mind of America beginning to assert its claims to be sufficient to overcome the doubts and cavils of our friends. self-government-beginning then, to assert in poliOur own people, at least, may learn from the fact a satis- tics that which the same native mind, within the factory lesson of confidence in themselves, which should last twenty years, has, for the first time, begun tend very much to free them from the usurpations of fo- nobly to assert for itself in letters and the arts. reign judgment. But the statement of Mr. Alison, quoted It is still the policy of Great Britain that we should

above, goes one stride further in absurdity. That the wri

tings of certain American authors are published in London, not succeed in this assertion-that we should still "is a decisive proof that European habits and ideas are ne-be her subject province, in one respect, if not in cessary to their due development." It is impossible to say all. Her thought, on this subject, is very much where that law of logic is to be found, which leads to any the offspring of her wish! such conclusion. As well may we say that, as the writings

of Walter Scott and Bulwer are published in New York,

A native Literature is the means, and the only Of the imit is "a decisive proof that American habits and ideas are ne-means, of our perfect independence. cessary to their due development." The fact is, that this view portance of this agent to a people, and to the Ameof the case presents an additional argument in its favor, rican people in particular, it may be necessary that derived from the greater diffusion of their books among us we should fortify our own views, by reference to than is probably the case in England. The number of cothose of a deservedly great authority. We are the pies in an American edition of a successful novel writer is very far greater usually than the English editions-a fact more anxious to do this, as it appears to us that arising not from any superior appreciation of the merits of the our people have really but a very imperfect appreauthor, but simply from the greater cheapness of the volumes. 'ciation of the subject, and regard with a strange

indifference, as if the matter did not in any ways | sure? Shall America be only an echo of what is
concern them, the great and singular struggle, now thought and written under the aristocracies beyond
in progress, between the native and the foreign ge- the ocean?"
nius-the genius loci now, for the first time, strug-
gling into birth and claiming to be heard; and that
maternal mind, throned in the empire of song and
thought, and upheld by the mightiest masters of
art that ever made a nation famous, from which
we proudly claim to have derived all the qualities
which should accord, in the progress of time, a
like eminence to the genius of our country! We
take, from the writings of Dr. Channing, the fol-
lowing lucid and comprehensive paragraph.

No language could put the importance of this
subject more clearly before the mind; and, with-
out dwelling upon the point, we will proceed to
show that the necessity of a national Literature,
great as it is, to the people of every country, is of
far more importance to the people of the United
States, than it can, by any possibility, be to any
other. In our case, the colonial habit of deferring
to the Mother Country is maintained and strength-
ened, in spite of our political emancipation, by our
employment of the same language.
Could we
have found a new dialect-a tongue of our own,
suitable to our condition, and expressive of our

won, we should, by this time, have been in posses-
sion of a Literature, in which they might have
been proportionably and permanently enshrined.
The securities for mental independence on the part
of France, Germany and other great nations of
Europe, are to be found chiefly in the obstacles
which their several languages present, as it were,
upon the very threshold, to the invasion and usur-
pation of strangers. The unknown tongue stands
to the intruder in the guise of a bearded sentinel,
jealous of every approach, and resisting the in-

"The facility," says that great writer, "with which we receive the literature of foreign countries, instead of being a reason for neglecting our own, is a strong motive for its cultivation. We liberties, on the same battle-field where they were mean not to be paradoxical, but we believe it would be better to admit no books from abroad, than to make them substitutes for our own intellectual activity. The more we receive from other countries, the greater the need of an original literature. A people, into whose minds the thoughts of foreigners are poured perpetually, needs an energy within itself to resist and to modify this mighty infuence; and without it will inevitably sink under the worst bondage-will become intellectually enslaved. We have certainly no desire to complete cur restrictive system, by adding to it a literary gress of all not possessing the parole. We have non-intercourse law. We rejoice in the increasing no such securities. The enemy approaches us intellectual connexion between this country and with the smooth and insidious utterance of our the old world. But sooner would we rupture it, mother tongue, and we are naturally slow to susthan see our country sitting passively at the feet of peet hostility in any such approach. How admiforeign teachers. Better have no Literature than rably may we illustrate the important bearing of to form ourselves unresistingly on a foreign one. this isolated fact, by a reference to the social and The true sovereigns of a country are those who political relation in which we stand, comparatively, determine its mind-its modes of thinking-its with France and England. The former we know, taste, its principles; and we cannot consent to lodge almost entirely, by acts of kindness. By her aid, this sovereignty in the hands of strangers. A coun- we struggled into national individuality. With the try, like an individual, has dignity and power only in exception of the quasi war with the Directory, the proportion as it is self-formed. There is a great stir result of that Ishmaelite aspect in which that body to secure to ourselves the manufacturing of our own stood to all the world, she has borne towards us, clothing. We say, let others spin, and weave for from the first day of our political freedom, the us, but let them not think for us. A people, whose most encouraging and friendly countenance. Such, government and laws are nothing but the embody- too, has been the aspect of her people. The books ing of public opinion, should jealously guard this and bearing of her distinguished travellers among opinion against foreign dictation. We need a Lite- us have been marked by an equal sense of urbanirature to counteract, and to use wisely, the Lite- ty and justice.* England, on the contrary, almost rature which we import. We need an inward power proportionate to that which is exerted upon * Would the British people desire the best, the most Es, as the means of self-subsistence. It is parhonorable and impartial commentary on the character of ticularly true of a people, whose institutions de- their feelings toward this country, let them compare-contrast rather-the deportment of the distinguished Frenchmand for their support a free and bold spirit, that men who have honored us with their presence, and that of they should be able to subject to a manly and in- their own travellers. Let them read the Beaumonts and dependent criticism whatever comes from abroad. De Tocquevilles, and turn from their thoughtful, candid, These views seem to us to deserve serious atten- and elevated views, to the sickening spite, the low mation. We are becoming, more and more, a read-lice, the cavilling and querulous peevishness, the dishonest ng people. Books are already among the most powerful influences here. The question is, shall Europe, through these, fashion us after its plea

VOL. X-2

representation, the perverse will, which cannot be made to
see the brighter aspects of the object, but turns perpetu-
ally to the more grateful survey of those which may offend,
by which the volumes of the Marryatts, the Trollopes and

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from the beginning, has put forth all her energies " You cannot be kicked into a war with Great Brito enslave or destroy us. Failing in this attempt, tain." What was the language of the British Comshe resorts to others, which, if less dangerous and missioners at Ghent, met just after war had been dehurtful, are as little legitimate, and prove the cha-clared, to treat with our own, for the consummation racter of her feelings to have remained unchanged. of peace?-a proceeding which smacked so much To this day, her writers, her travellers, her lead- of national timidity, as almost to justify the insolent ing men, with few exceptions-the officers of her demands of the enemy! The substance of their navy-the agents of her government, and those language was, "we do not care to grant you peace, who give utterance usually to her feelings and opi-'till we have subjected you to a sound thrashing." nions-speak of us, habitually, in terms either of But that the honor of the nation was entrusted to frank hostility, or downright scorn and contempt. sound native minds.-men of stubborn, independent Yet the affinities suggested by the employment of intellect-it must have been dishonored.* But a language in common, make us tolerate all the what must have been thought of the morale of the insults of the one, as if we still yearned for the an- nation when, even in time of war, its special reprecient wallow of colonial dependency;-and with sentatives were approached in such a spirit by the what miserable time-serving sycophancy does a very people with whom we were in conflict! The large and active class among us contrive to solicit intellect of the nation was despised, rather than its the contumelious expression of such among them, spirit. The spirit of a civilized nation depends so as deign to look in person upon us,-examining our greatly upon its intellect, that the estimate which ways and means-our manners and customs, as if we make of the one, involves the other also. What we were in reality, by nature, an inferior people, had the United States done in intellectual matters, and not, unfortunately, too nearly like themselves to compel the respect of other countries? Nothing! not to be confounded with them in every other part literally nothing! Our orators were numerous and of the world!* On the other hand, dealing with the able, it is true-but the achievements of the tribune French, and prompted by the hostile sentiments and the forum are usually of domestic recognition which a foreign tongue seems naturally to inspire, only. They present no enduring, or obvious memowe are ready to quarrel on the slightest provoca- rials, before the eyes of foreign nations. Our comtion. Of their Science, Arts, Literature, their merce was increasing our manufactures. We had inventions and discoveries, we have little, or no shown no mean ingenuity-no inferior skill, in congeneral knowledge, except through discolored Bri- tending in most of the arts of trade, with rival nations. tish media, the prejudices of which we uncon-But in the superior arts, in the sciences, in poetry, sciously imbibe, and thus form antipathies to a great painting, statuary, classical and general Literaand friendly nation, with the same unhappy facility, ture, the nation was totally unrepresented abroad! with which we take on trust all the tastes, senti- There was no sign-manual, characteristic of Amements and opinions of a master, by whom we are rican genius, to be placed before the eyes of legitimuch more frequently reviled than instructed. mate and reluctant Europe. Before this sign-manual could be made, it was necessary that the American mind should be emancipated from its

The birth of a home Literature is the great and sufficient remedy for all these errors and absurdities-and that Literature is born! The war of memories of colonial servitude. The war of 1812 1812 gave an important blow to the mental supremacy of Great Britain over this country. Prior to that war, what was the humiliating position in which we stood to that nation? Politicians will not have forgotten the scornful reproach, uttered, it is said, in the very ears of our President, (Madison,) the Dickens's, are blackened and branded. The commentary is not less fatal to the nation which receives, than to the travellers who write, with such gout, narratives, which, if true, should give pain rather than pleasure, to the people, who are told such enormities of their kindred and de

scendants.

* This, so far as our relation to the people of Great Britain is affected, is an amusing truth which reflects the happiest commentary upon the ridiculous pretensions of the latter, on the subject of manners and politeness: on the continent, John Bull and Brother Jonathan are usually put into the same category, and pronounced equally incorrigi ble. If, in the estimation of the politer nations of the South, there be any difference between them, it is that Bull is more insolent, and his descendant more impertinent. We know not, so far as other nations are concerned, that either of them, on this score, has any thing to boast.

gave the first impulse to a consummation so desirable. The scornful deportment of Great Britain forced upon our people, in their own spite, a painful, but proud feeling, of their individuality;— made them sensible of what was due to national character and national pride. Perhaps, the lesson was only taught and learned in part, but it was a first lesson;-to be followed up by others. The savage excesses in which the British soldiery indulged-their horrible outrages at Hampton and other places, and the Hunlike brutalities at Washington, contributed to disturb our sympathy with British superiority, while making us properly resentful of their arms. The very disgraces to which the nation was subjected in Canada, were produc

* The commissioners at Ghent were Clay, Adams, Bayard, Gallatin and Russell-statesmen, who, whatever may be the estimate put upon their course and abilities in home matters, it must be admitted, were about the best persons who could have been chosen to treat with an insolent foreign enemy.

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