In the deep dungeon of some Gothic dome, Fast by a brook, or fountain's murmuring wave: And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my grave!" Virgil, in his second Georgick, has the same idea. Listen to the liquid flow of the language in which it is conveyed : "Rura mihi et rigui placeant in vallibus amnes, Flumina amem, sylvasque inglorias Oh qui me gelidis in vallibus Hami Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbrâ." Sotheby has made four fine lines out of this,—but oh, how far short come they of the original! The "sylvasque inglorias,” and “ gelidis in vallibus Hæmi,"where are they? Here is the translation: "Oh may I yet, by fame forgotten, dwell By gushing founts, wild woods, and shadowy dell! Hide me, some god! where Homus' vales extend, And boundless shade and solitude defend!" But neither in foreign nor in mother tongue, neither in time of eld, nor by modern muse inspired, has any thing in this vein been written, like that which I am now about to transcribe, from a rare but rich old volume, (that I will not lend !) worth twice its weight in virgin gold. It is called "The Vow for Retirement," and is from the pen of Anne, Countess of Winchelsea, who lived late in the seventeenth century. This exquisite effusion was written in the year 1695. "Grant me, O indulgent Fate! 'Mongst paths so lost, and trees so high, Scatters faint sun-light on the ground, Spangling with diamond-points the gloom around, A holy, pleasing, melancholy gleam! And never may the world invade Through such windings and such shade! "Let no intruders hither come, None who their vain moments pass, That common theme for every fop, No, never let the world invade With what my garden can impart; Whose cleanliness be all its art. Nor could the mighty patriarch's board, All-but the forbidden tree,- While, creeping near the humble ground, "Give me there-since Heaven has shown 'Twas not good to be alone A partner suited to my mind, Slighting, by my noiseless side, Spent their own and Nature's prime, And be the debt of nature paid Amid these windings and this shade !" I think you will agree with me that that is as good, at least, as the average of the original poetical contributions to the Southern Literary Messenger. In my last article, I took occasion to describe to you the scathing of a fine old oak by lightning, in the immediate neighborhood of Oakwood. I had not then met with the following beautiful lines, or I should have given them as appropriate to the subject. They are from a pen accustomed to coarser work,-that of no greater and more respectable, and, at the same time, no less notorious, a personage, than old "Dennis the Critic," and were written in the year 1695. The idea is noble and admirably sustained. Ages had seen yon deep-scathed oaks remain, The ornament and shelter of the plain : With their aspiring heads they dared the sky; J. F. O. MEMORY. ADDRESSED TO STUDENTS. Memoria excolendo augetur. In limine, we beg of the youthful reader of the Messenger, who for the sake of pleasure rambles through its pages, which like a pleasant parterre are strown with the choicest flowers of literature, not to start back from the perusal of this article under the apprehension that it is to be very analytical or metaphysical; on the contrary, even if we were endowed with the power of analysis, we would, for the sake of utility, make our observations of a practical character. We are no advocates of a born equality of mind, or rather, in more correct language, as we think, of an equality of mental susceptibility at birth, chiefly because we never yet saw a mother who believed it, and her opinion is entitled to as much weight, as that of the mere speculative philosopher, since she is capable of letting herself down, of becoming herself once more a child, for the purpose of conversing with and amusing the nascent mind of the infant pratler. The senses are the conductors of ideas to the mind, and without their existence there could be no ideas; but the senses do not act until birth; therefore anterior to birth there is no mind, or rather no ideas as yet impressed upon it, and as the major includes the minor, or the whole the part, of course no memory; but the inference that is sometimes drawn from this, that every infant starts in life with a mental apparatus equally qualified for success, and that with the same system of culture it will always remain the same in every individual, is not a fair inference, for each individual may commence his education with a different degree of susceptibility, and it is immaterial to our purpose whether this difference dates its existence anterior to, at, or subsequent to birth. Dr. Franklin and others, have compared the mind, before the reception of ideas, to a blank piece of paper; now, it is evident that one individual may have a broader sheet or tablet than another, or, to use the technical language of the printers' art, one may have a more receptive, another a more tenacious paper. Again, in farther illustration, take two measures, one a bushel and the other a half bushel measure, both empty; though they be empty, they are nevertheless measures, and no person will say that because they are empty, they have the same capacity. However strong the argument may be against any existence, or at least any exercise of mind before birth, it applies with still stronger force to the memory, for memory relates to things past, and implies experience: how then can there be a memory of that which has been neither heard, seen, touched, tasted nor smelled? There seems also to be less disparity in the susceptibility or capability of memory, in different individuals, than in any other mental function; this appears probable from its very great degree of teachableness, its quality of receiving mechanical or arbitrary helps, which indicate that it is less dependent on original constitution for excellence, than its sister functions of mind. It is related of Woodfall, the publisher of the Letters of Junius, that about the last quarter of the eighteenth century, he reported the speeches delivered in the Bri tish Parliament, from memory only. Mere auditors | for, besides its use in eliminating his argument, it has have frequently been known to repeat correctly from to him still additional and important uses. Reason, memory long speeches, some time after they had heard stern and severe, perhaps acts the more important part: them. In Germany, a young Jew has brought his she presides at the helm; but memory stands by, a memory to such a degree of excellence, that he is now faithful servitor, and hands over to her the stubborn astonishing several of the European capitals by reci- statistics, the apposite quotation, and beautiful allusion; ting from it the seven folio volumes of the Talmud, she never deserts her post, not even when he is in the from beginning to end, and afterwards from end to be- most inflamed state of feeling or highest degree of ginning. Indeed, whatever may be the speculations of mental exaltation, of which his mind is capable. She mankind on this subject, they act as if they believed kindles and strengthens with the orator's rising ardor, the truth inferred from the preceding paragraph, for until she seems to embrace upon her chart the whole whilst they resent, as an insulting imputation, any reflec- broad expanse of the past; and, gathering up almost tion on their other mental powers, because it would im-in one moment of inspiration the garnered wisdom of ply that God had given them less of these qualities more than six thousand years of experience, she prethan to other men, they not only receive good humor-sents it, to be wielded in the cause of truth and justice. edly any impeachment of their memory, but even Hence it is evident that of two orators, ceteris paribus, sometimes take a delight in railing against it themselves. the one who has the readier and better stored memory, We infer from the premises, that if memory do not will possess an immense advantage. Innumerable exexist anterior to birth; if the degree of its suscepti-amples might be adduced illustrative of this position; bility or impressibility be the same or nearly the same in different individuals; if it be docile beyond the other faculties, no person need despair of making his memory all that is desirable. we will, however, only refer to the case of an ex-president of the United States, who frequently overthrows a finely constructed argument, or breaks the force of an eloquent appeal, by the quotation of a formidable array of authorities and stubborn facts from that inexhaustible treasury-his memory. It is a thought which we do not remember to have seen prominently set forth, and one which may aid us in placing a proper estimate upon this noble faculty, that it snatches from annihilation one third of the domain of time-the past; but for it, we should be left with the unsatisfying present, and the inexplorable future. It is to this wonderful capability of the human We now proceed to vindicate the dignity and importance of memory in the intellectual system. It is not our intention to resolve all or several of the components of mind into memory, but adopting the admitted truth that all the divisions of the states of which mind is capable, are closely connected with and dependent upon each other, to show that if it be not the foundation stone, or the sustaining arch, it is something more than an embellishment of the mental fabric, and as such can not be neglected without greatly weakening that recip-mind, that we are indebted for whatever of wisdom or rocal and blended strength and beauty which the several parts receive from each other. The prejudice against the importance of memory, and even the belief that a high degree of it is inconsistent with the strength of the kindred faculties, are not confined to the ignorant, but have sometimes made their appear-music-in vain would the noble Socrates, the ken of ance in books of merit. The wise ancients thought not thus. They made Mnemosyne, or Memory, the mother of the Nine Muses, or the arts, of which they are the presiding deities-the severe one of history, the stately one of the epic, the laughing one of comedy, and the weeping one of tragedy. Felicesque vocat pariter studuque locique Ovid, Lib. V., Fab. IV. warning, virtue or valor, is afforded in the history of the past, and which without it would have perished in the very moment of their exertion. In vain for us, would the inspired bard of "Scio's rocky isle" have arranged his thoughts in beauty, and uttered them in whose mind almost supplied the want of revelation, have invited us to virtue by his matchless colloquial eloquence, and the sweetly attractive current of his lifein vain for us, would the first Brutus, standing over the corpse of beauty and chastity, for his altar, have uttered the first vow, and struck the first blow for rational and regulated liberty—if tradition, the dependent offspring, or rather another name for memory, had not preserved the recollection of these events, until a writer Plato seems to make all knowledge consist in remem- arose, received the precious charge, and bequeathed it, in brance, and Diodorus Siculus ascribes to memory the perpetuity of possession, to all coming time. But for art of reasoning. An examination of the process of this conversion, this reproduction of the past, for the ratiocination will show that there is some truth as well wants of the present, it is evident we should be conas poetry in this latter opinion, viz: the reasoner pro- demned to a stationary state; but by its help, each sucposes to prove something which is commonly distant ceeding generation stands upon the heads of the precefrom his premises, and to do it by a series of arguments, ding, and by the elevation of their station command a which, as they are mutually connected and dependent, more extended horizon, and see as much farther down are compared to the links of a chain. The danger is, the stream of time, as the one is higher than the other. that, in the ardor or confusion of the process, he may As the means of preserving materials for history, are so on.it, transpose, or repeat some of the links; from this abundant at the present day, in exhibiting the connection nothing can protect him but memory, which sits by, a between tradition and memory, it is not intended to claim faithful prompter, and preserves to him the collocation for the former, that degree of importance which it had in which he has elaborated in his closet, or other circum-the infancy of society, when it was the most common and stances of leisure. useful source of history. In tracing out this connection, avoided the inference of perfect There seem to be several circum If memory be so necessary to the mathematical or it is hoped we have philosophical inquirer, it is still more so to the orator; identity of the two. VOL. IV-86 stances which distinguish them. Memory relates to | circumstances, never flags-it becomes the slave of the individuals, tradition to the aggregation of mankind possessor; let him will it any particular duty, and the into generations-there can be memory without tradi-performance easily follows the act of volition. With tion, but no tradition without memory. In nations such a mind, he can turn his thoughts inward, concendestitute of the means of preserving records, the memory of one generation, handed down to the succeeding, becomes tradition. trate his ideas, shut out the external world, or, at least be but little affected by its distractions, marshal his powers for action, and bring them to bear like a Macedonian phalanx upon the positions of his adversary. There is no error more common or injurious than this of the young student, who supposes that when he has prepared the subject of a recitation or lecture, he has no farther interest in giving his attention to the instructor in his elucidation of it to others. Hence results the ina Memory assumes no less importance, considered in its connection with experience. Such is the high estimate placed upon this mental possession, that it has been called the mother of wisdom. We define experience to be the memory of past occurrences, mixed with that power of turning them to advantage, which arises from a careful observation and collation of them. This pow-bility in after life to accompany a close piece of reasoner of careful observation and comparison is wanting in many persons-from which it would appear that there may be memory without experience, but no experience without memory. ing through all its stages, and a wretched imbecility and servile dependence of mind. It follows from the rule just given, that all translations and nigh cuts to the lesson must be avoided, since these render close and The connection of several of the states of the mind with memory, and their partial dependence upon it, have been traced. We will now close with a few observations upon the pleasures of memory, and, under this head, its connection with some of the moral emotions will be pointed out. The exercise of conscience implies a recollection of our past acts, with a feeling of approval or disapproval of them, in proportion as they are conformable or unconformable to the standard of right: how then could there be this review and judg ment upon our past acts, if they found no abiding If the young enthusiast after knowledge, has accom-long continued attention unnecessary. panied us thus far, we hope that, like ourselves, he has been impressed with a desire to improve this noble faculty. Obviously the best mode of improving the memory, is by properly exercising the attention, on which it mainly depends, and the strong or weak exertion of which accounts for the various degrees of memory which we observe in different individuals, rather than any difference of susceptibility at birth. When we hear that everlasting complaint of the young, "I have a bad memory-I have no inducement to study any thing, for I cannot remember it," we are apt to inquire into their habits of attention-which inquiry commonly re-place in the memory? If they did not, we could not sults in the knowledge, that attention is considered as an affection of the mind, that is scarcely worthy of education. Alexander or Bonaparte ever knew, since the resulting happiness is extended through this life and renewed in eternity. It is true, another office of conscience is prospective in its operation, as when we say, "my conscience will not let me do so and so." But still this enlightenment of conscience, which enables us to decide correctly on the propriety or impropriety of a contemplated action, has been taught or at least improved by the feeling of condemnation or approbation consequent on our past acts: ex. gra, a money lender lends a sum for usury, without any conviction of im propriety at the time; but a sense of guilt subsequently arises; and when a proposition is again made to lend money on similar terms, his conscience, as men say, will not let him do it. In this restraining conscience, preserve the "mens conscia sibi recti,” which, as a good angel, enables a man to bear up under the abandonment of friends and fortune, the impeachment of his motives, We will now, after the fashion of nostrum venders, and the assault of his character. This is the only give a sovereign recipe for the formation of a good reward which thousands of the unappreciated and unmemory, and the cure of a bad one :-Direct the atten-requited virtuous ever obtain. The bad man considers tion upon the beginning, and continue it throughout the it a poor remuneration, but it is a richer possession than delivery of every sermon, speech, lecture, and recitation, made in your presence, however abstruse the subject, or dull and uninteresting its expounder. It is objected that a discourse of the nature supposed in the apodixis of the foregoing sentence, produces an insupportable irksomeness; well, we do from the bottom of our heart pity the luckless wight who is doomed to the merciless infliction of some articulate savage, who redeems his cruelty with no perspicuity of reasoning, no eloquence of diction, no flash of fancy, or sparkling of wit. But into such bloody hands every one is liable to fall, and is not compliance with the advice just given the best salve? For when the mind is closely engaged in the subject, it cannot suffer greatly, whatever may be the faults of him who handles it; besides, perseverance in the course recommended, gradually diminishes the neces-nothing more is discerned than a painful recollection of sity of painful effort, until it results into habit of attention; and it is to us one of the kindest arrangements of the benevolent Being, that our habits beguile much of our toil and minister to our virtuous pleasures. Labor ipse voluptas. Authorities, no less than reason, sustain the views taken of attention. Many of the luminaries of the world have left it on record for the benefit of youth, that much of the superiority which is attributed to genius, belongs to a proper exercise of the power of attention. The mind of the man who has acquired the power of fixing it at all times and places, and under all the first transaction acting on his virtuous sensibilities. Gratitude, the least alloyed of human virtues, equally with conscience, seems to have a dependant connection with memory. Indeed, gratitude has been beautifully called the memory of the heart; but, in more correct language, it is a vivid recollection of past kindness, with an emotion of love to its author, as its consequent. It is memory, then, which preserves this heavenly, pure feeling-frequently the only requital which the destitute can make to the clother of his nakedness, the feeder of his hunger, and the enlightener of his ignorance. But for this the recipient might be depressed by an overwhelming sense of the irrepayable weight of his obligation; but with this emotion gushing in perennial streams from the fountains of the heart, he feels that he is not altogether unworthy or destitute of every power of requital. A good man will never desire any other reward for his alms, and thus it is that charity blesseth him who gives and him who takes. The pleasures of hope have often been analyzed by the philosopher and sung by the poet, whilst the more chastened and unobtrusive pleasures of memory have seldom been a theme; but hope was not the only boon that remained behind in Pandora's box: the domain of memory-the past-is more emphatically ours, than that of hope-the future. Who that is contending with a slanderous and envious world, does not feel that it is his purest pleasure to send his mind back along the track which he has thus far described in his pilgrimage? In this retrospective journey, each retraced step shows more lovely and bright than the position which has just been left; all along the path of retrogression arises some remembered and innocent joy, until the mental traveller arrives at the only elysium known on earth-the virtuous home of childhood. Here then the weary wrestler has arrived at a point, when love and hatred and ambition had never agitated his breast-nor selfishness and deception poisoned his philanthropy-when he scarcely suspected the existence of vice in the world, because he found none in his own home. Here he fondly but dimly calls up the beloved forms of the hoary sirethe care-worn mother-the laughing sister, and the fond brother. None but he who is incapable of such a retrospection dare say, that memory is not a friend to virtue, and, therefore, to happiness. Even the recollection of those sad events, which have been engraven on our mental tablets with the iron stylus of affliction, is softened and mellowed by the lapse of time, as distance of space takes away from objects their rugged points and revolting features. Of all our mental faculties, it is probable, that we shall carry memory with us in the greatest perfection into the eternal world. Hope will be swallowed up in fruition-for, how can there be any hope where such is the fulness of glory and happiness that nothing is left to be desired? We have imagined that, when this earth shall have been rendered once more without form and void, the beatified spirit will delight, by the help of memory, to revisit the scene of its probation, remembering each drop of water that it put to the parched lip, and each wanderer that it pointed to the road of bliss.—Haec olim meminisse juvabil. University of North Carolina. SOLITUDE. I know not why I often feel Into my heart, 'midst crowds and mirth, As if there were no sympathy Then quick the unbidden tear-drops spring And bind them in their sad domain; And though such thoughts I strive to flee, I. N. THE EMIGRANT TO HIMSELF. I left my native land to toil for gold, In the faint murmurs of their dying breath; Or with my presence soothe their bed of death. And years are lost to me, with those who live, Of sweet communion. Is the voice I heard In childhood's happy days, no more to give Its music to my ear, even in one word? My own loved brother! are our sports forgot? Those sports our infancy and manhood shared : view with memory's eye each well-known spot, I By thoughts of thee and of thy love endeared. I had no feeling which thou didst not know; Friends, brothers, sisters-every hallowed tie It cannot-would it might! for I am gray, |