which he places it under his chin and left ear, (which "That undisturbed song of pure concent terminating at last in "Lamentation loud Heard on the rueful stream," lobster might be supposed to make. His performance on one string, I look upon as a mere tour de force, an object of vulgar curiosity, and would not mention it, but for the story by which it is generally explained. It was reported and generally believed, that he had suffered a long imprisonment for having assassinated his wife. His sole resource was his viclin, and having but a small supply of catgut, as the story goes, in order to economize it, he learned to dispense with three of the usual number of strings. This melo-dramatic tale, added much to the curiosity and interest which he inspired. People looked upon him with a mysterious dread, as a sort of demon incarnate. He was perhaps the devil who played for the sleeping Tartini. The magic artist never deigned to contradict the story, until walking one day, on the boulevards of Paris, he saw in a shop window, a picture representing himself with a fiend-like countenance, plunging a dagger into the bosom of the imploring Mrs. Paganini. He could not stand the such wailing sounds as startled the ear of Dante, when joke carried thus far, and accordingly addressed a letter he approached the gates of eternal misery. Quivi sospiri, pianti ed alti guai Voci alte e fioche, e suon di man con elle, to one of the public journals, declaring that there was not the slightest foundation for the tale, and appealing to respectable persons, who had known him from infancy, for the truth of his averment. From this letter, it appeared that he had been a musical prodigy from his infancy, and that his whole life had been devoted to the cultivation of his divine art. In fact, he had never been married. Little Miss Watson, who So clear and round are Paganini's tones that they seem eloped with or rather to him, does not seem to have to proceed from an instrument stringed with glass. regarded him as a monster. The story however is Independently of his execution he possesses genius in founded upon a fact, which occurred in Italy, partially the highest degree, which seems to master and tyran- as represented, more than a century ago. I heard nize over his soul. He is the mere instrument of the Paganini several times in Florence in the presence of spirit within. When executing his musical improvisa-the court and brilliant audiences, upon which he always tions, the expression of his eye becomes intense and fit-produced the most extraordinary impression. ful, his frame shudders, and his arms and fingers act. There is nothing more remarkable than the difference with an apparently convulsive motion. He has then in the musical talent and passion of nations. The the air of a galvanized corpsc. It is at these moments, English are perhaps the most unmusical of civilized he produces those wild, thrilling and tempestuous people. The French have more passion for music, but effects, which cannot be listened to without emotion too the national taste is a vicious one, and their language intense to be agreeable. A fierce demon seems to agiworse adapted to it than any other cultivated tongue. tate his frame, and it is when in this condition, that his The Germans, with scarcely an exception, have a proinstrument has been compared to a wild beast, which found musical passion and they excel all other nations in gnawing his vitals, draws from him those wailing instrumental skill. Their music is tender, romantic, and agonizing sounds. His appearance adds, not a rich and solemn. Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, and a little, to the effect of his extraordinary powers. Tall host of others, are composers of unsurpassed excellence. and gaunt, with a cadaverous face, sunken eyes of hec- But Italy is the very seat and throne of the musical tic transparency, hollow cheeks, and long, lank, dark empire. There, are found the greatest number of cele locks, falling down to his shoulders, he is an admirable brated composers, and thence come nearly all the great personification of that enthusiasm of which he is the singers. There must be something in the climate and victim. He is, or was, very much like the portraits I air very favorable to the voice, for when impaired in have seen of Irving, the mad Scotch preacher, who set other countries, it is often restored by a short residence all London in a ferment, some years ago. It is said in the mild region of Ausonia. Music, there, is a unithat such is the effect of his performance upon his ner-versal passion, and even the common people excel in it. vous, excitable temperament, that it often incapaci-I have often, in a moonlight night, followed groups of tates him for some days after. There is no affectation about him, but rather an awkward stiffness, and his bow is so constrained and uncouth, that it has been facetiously observed to be just such a reverence as a Here sighs with lamentations and loud moans laborers, who were executing with fine taste, and admirable unison, passages from the popular operas. I shall never forget the agreeable surprise I once experienced upon entering a silk manufactory in the neighborhood of the royal residence of Caserta near Naples, at finding, perhaps a hundred neatly dressed peasant girls, seated in rows in a large airy hall, all singing at their work, in harmonious chorus, under the direction of a leader of their own sex. It was a most charming spectacle, and strongly expressive of the national taste and passion. But I must stop, ere I have exhausted my subject, for fear of wearying my readers, if I have not done so already. These reminiscences must be pardoned for their vagueness and inaccuracy, as years have elapsed since the impressions were made, and I have no notes to aid my memory. I must also crave indulgence for any erroneous use of technical terms, into which I may have fallen, as I do not pretend to be a connoisseur. J. L. M. THE LAND FAR AWAY. BY ELORA. There are bright homes mid bowers of deathless glory, There on the mountain tops, the day declining, With sunlike brightness o'er the vallies blest. Cherub and seraphim of glory, bending And shall we weep for those to joy departed? Or shall we mourn that they shall grieve no more? Sick as we are, and sad and weary-hearted, Shall we recall them from that blessed shore? See where they dwell-the forms we loved and cherished; From age, dim-eyed with hair of silver gray, To the fair babe that like a blossom perishedIn a land far away! Thou, best and dearest-ever-gentle mother, Who soothed me in thy circling arms to rest, Stilling the cries which would have vexed another, By folding me with love upon thy breastGreen o'er thy grave for years the long grass sighing, Hath seemed to mourn above the mouldering clay, But well I know thy spirit dwells undying, In a land far away! And He whose brightness suns and stars are veiling, There with their presence make eternal day! TOUCHI CHING TREES & TREE TOPICS. "Nobis placeant ante omnia sylvæ."—Virgil. Since my last article was written, where can any one have lived in comfort, who had not trees to fly to for shelter, against such heats as have prevailed? Oakwood has been Eden all the while-Eden without a tempter: yet unlike the sacred garden, became decay-stricken, like every thing else decreed to man by Omnipotence. Even now we see around us, as we course through the woodlanes, on our evening and morning rides, a crimson oak leaf here, and there a yellowing maple. But what delicious sun-sets, and what heaven-sent breezes come And then the fruits,in with this change of season! that ripen by the same influences which make sere the foliage and gild the wavy corn-rigs,-the downy peach, the purple plum, the blushing nectarine, the crisp water-melon, and luscious cantelope. Is it not true that Thomson, the seasons' poet, hath said, "These are but the varied God ?" Come, then, at the springing, the verdant, or the falling leaf, and you shall have a welcome in these woods. What matters it when? What saith Pliny? "Frutetis et arboribus dilapsa folia.” And here, you can readily realize what he means. Yet is the fall only incipient as yet. The leaves dilapse but here and there; the leaf of the lemon-clingstone is yel lowing faster than the fruitage, and more brown oak leaves fall than ripening acorns. The sycamore is early dying, and its foliage comes earthward with its loosening bark; the seed-vessels of the acacia grow daily a deeper brown, and the white stems of the slender birches shine more silverly among their yellow masses. Another month, and what wood-glory will be here! But I will not anticipate it. When the time comes, I will tell you of the gorgeous change; though I may see it painted in the forests of a more northern state. It will yet be the same in all its features: and Nature is Nature still, with all her thousand charms, view her where and when, and whence you may. Two months only would I gladly spend in the city. I am not so sylvan as to eschew every thing urban, and forever. But I should sooner tire of town than country, and am of the mind of Tacitus in this: "Nemora vero, (says he,) et luci, et secretum ipsum, tantam mihi afferunt voluptatem, ut inter precipuos carminum fructus numerem, quod nec in strepitu componuntur." The forgetfulness of the noisy world, which the lover of retirement soon finds occasion to experience,-I mean the oblivion into which he, not the world, passes, when he secludes himself from the latter,-is with many a great bug-bear to scare him from the indulgence of a sylvan taste. He gains the greater good, however, who gives up the town, and, with Horace, "Inter sylvas academi quæret verum.” How beautiful Beattie expresses this preference, while choosing a spot for his last pillow! "Let vanity adorn the marble tomb With trophies, rhymes, and scutcheons of renown; 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 Homi,”— 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 Hamus' 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! Grant me yet, before I die, '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; 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 bas been neither heard, seen, touched, tasted nor smelled? There seems also to be less disparity in the suscepti bility or capability of memory, in different individuals, than in any other mental function; this appears probable from its very great degree of leachableness, 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. 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 compo- It is a thought which we do not remember to have nents of mind into memory, but adopting the admitted seen prominently set forth, and one which may aid us truth that all the divisions of the states of which mind in placing a proper estimate upon this noble faculty, is capable, are closely connected with and dependent that it snatches from annihilation one third of the doupon each other, to show that if it be not the foundation main of time-the past; but for it, we should be left stone, or the sustaining arch, it is something more than with the unsatisfying present, and the inexplorable an embellishment of the mental fabric, and as such can future. It is to this wonderful capability of the human 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 se- warning, virtue or valor, is afforded in the history of veral parts receive from each other. The prejudice the past, and which without it would have perished in against the importance of memory, and even the the very moment of their exertion. In vain for us, belief that a high degree of it is inconsistent with the would the inspired bard of "Scio's rocky isle" have strength of the kindred faculties, are not confined to arranged his thoughts in beauty, and uttered them in 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 whose mind almost supplied the want of revelation, not thus. They made Mnemosyne, or Memory, the have invited us to virtue by his matchless colloquial elomother of the Nine Muses, or the arts, of which they quence, and the sweetly attractive current of his lifeare the presiding deities-the severe one of history, in vain for us, would the first Brutus, standing over the the stately one of the epic, the laughing one of comedy, corpse of beauty and chastity, for his altar, have utterand the weeping one of tragedy. ed 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 arose, received the precious charge, and bequeathed it, in perpetuity of possession, to all coming time. But for this conversion, this reproduction of the past, for the wants of the present, it is evident we should be condemned to a stationary state; but by its help, each succeeding generation stands upon the heads of the preceding, and by the elevation of their station command a more extended horizon, and see as much farther down the stream of time, as the one is higher than the other. As the means of preserving materials for history, are so abundant at the present day, in exhibiting the connection between tradition and memory, it is not intended to claim for the former, that degree of importance which it had in the infancy of society, when it was the most common and useful source of history. In tracing out this connection, it is hoped we have avoided the inference of perfect identity of the two. There seem to be several circumVOL. IV-86 Felicesque vocat pariter studuque locique Ovid, Lib. V., Fab. IV. Plato seems to make all knowledge consist in remembrance, and Diodorus Siculus ascribes to memory the art of reasoning. An examination of the process of ratiocination will show that there is some truth as well as poetry in this latter opinion, viz: the reasoner proposes to prove something which is commonly distant from his premises, and to do it by a series of arguments, which, as they are mutually connected and dependent, are compared to the links of a chain. The danger is, that, in the ardor or confusion of the process, he may omit, transpose, or repeat some of the links; from this nothing can protect him but memory, which sits by, a faithful prompter, and preserves to him the collocation which he has elaborated in his closet, or other circum stances of leisure. If memory be so necessary to the mathematical or philosophical inquirer, it is still more so to the orator; |