P392.1

1857. Afruit. 25.
wift of

-Mis. N.α. Haver jr.
& Portsmouth N. H.

1-4.

THE UNITED STATES LITERARY GAZETTE.

Published on the first and fifteenth day of every month, by Cummings, Hilliard, & Co. No. 1 Cornhill, Boston.Terms, $5 per annum, payable in July. VOL. I.

taught, unreclaimed, and unsubdued ignorance and wilfulness.

child. In these schools the children are tinct school, of the system of r utual intructaught to read and spell correctly, and thus tion with very satisfactory success. One The attention paid to education in most to fit themselves effectually for the higher hundred and sixty children, who were too parts of the civilized world, is a striking schools. Pupils are first received at four old for the primary schools and unqualified characteristic of this age, and a proof that years of age, which is quite as soon as the to enter the grammar schools, were receivman is beginning to be blessed with a bet- discipline and instruction of a school can ed and instructed in the same branches as ter discernment of the true end and uses of be applied to advantage. These schools are taught in the other schools by one maslife, and a greater willingness to regard are numerous, because experiment has prov- ter at a much less expense. moral and intellectual good, as more valua-ed that fifty or sixty children are as many ble than any thing beside. In England the as one mistress can successfully instruct, and efforts of many prominent men, to institute because it is important that the schools a system of general education, are well should be as near as possible to the homes known. The discoveries of Lancaster and of the infant pupils. Their object and effect Bell have applied to the work of instruc- is to bring the first rudiments of education tion, principles of great efficacy. In the near to the doors of all who are wise enough best parts of Europe schools of various and kind enough to their children to avail kinds have been established, which in most themselves of them. All the Primary Schools instances are supported by the strength of are under the immediate care of a board, public opinion, and, in many, also receive consisting of fifty members, who are dividprincely or royal patronage. Of some of ed and subdivided into various committees, these institutions, the object is to give to armed with proper powers and charged with the highest ranks suitable education; of corresponding responsibilities. The greatothers, to reclaim the lower classes from est care is taken to secure, by mutual, reckless and irregular habits, by the power ceaseless, and exact report and supervision, of discipline, and to give them useful knowl- a faithful and efficient execution of this well edge for utter ignorance. These indica- organized system. The monthly, quarterly, may be fallacious,-they may promise and semi-annual written reports are made less than we think they do, this progress every year with unvarying regularity and and tendency, if it exist, may be checked or equal in quantity more than a thousand pages. nade to retrograde;-but assuredly it is Each child is faithfully examined at least right for us to rejoice in an unquestionable twelve times a year, and many, much ofgrowth and improvement of important hu- tener. man institutions, and to expect therefrom extensive and valuable influence upon human character.

tions

The English Classical School was established for the admirable purpose of providing for lads intending to become merchants or mechanics, means of more extended and complete instruction than they could obtain at any of the other public schools. There are four instructers, and no scholars are admitted under twelve years of age. The course continues during three years, but the branches of most importance are made to fall within the first year, as many of the scholars are unable to remain in the school a ter they are old enough to do something for their own support. The studies in this school embrace Intellectual and Written Arithmetic, Geography and the use of the gobes, Grammar, History, Book-keeping, Elements of some Arts and Sciences, Composition and Declamation, Geometry, Algebra, Trigonometry, Natural Philosophy and History, Chemistry, Moral Philosophy, Natural Theology, Rhetoric, Evidences of Christianity, Intellectual Philosophy, Political Economy, Logic, and the French Lan

From these schools, scholars who are pro-guage. perly prepared, go to the English Grammar The Latin School is the last which we and Writing Schools, which are in two rooms; shall have occasion to notice, as it comIn this improvement the city of Boston the two branches being kept entirely dis-pletes the course of public instruction. Our takes the lead; we are justified in saying tinct. Each room has a master and assistant, linits will not allow us to speak of this so, because nowhere else has a large city and accommodates three hundred children. school at much length. The Grammars are made an universal and strenuous effort to From the middle of April to the middle of first thoroughly learned, and the course of awaken in her youth a love of knowledge, October girls attend these schools, spend-study makes the scholars familiar with seand to fix in them habits of order at that peri-ing half the day in the reading and half in lected parts of Cicero, Horace, Juvenal od of life, when those impressions are receiv- the writing room, and alternating with the and Persius, Xenophon, Homer, Wittened, of which the successive development in boys. It is supposed girls would not attend bach's Greek Historians, and the Greek some sort constitutes the character. The during the inclement season, and in the Testament, together with Geography, Arithwork is begun as soon as it can be with any half year in which they are excluded, the metic, Geometry, Trigonometry, and Algeprospect of advantage, and is continued un-boys are divided between the rooms; the bra. Very considerable portions of the til that age when the education of schools first and lowest classes being separated best Latin and Greek poets are committed must give way to the business of active from the intermediate classes. The read- to memory. life. The system of public and universal ing schools are subdivided into four classes, One very useful, valuable, and, we beinstruction, in operation in this city, has of which the upper two are peculiarly un-lieve, rather peculiar improvement, is adoptbeen gradually improved as experience and der the master's care, but he is strictly re-ed in this and in the English Classical the sagacity of the directors suggested al- sponsible for the whole. Geography is School. Every one who has had any conterations. It is now in most successful taught only to the highest class, but less is cern with a school, either as a scholar or operation, and a pamphlet has been printed effected in this study than might be with master, is perfectly aware of the great for the purpose of presenting to the consid- more apparatus and greater facilities. A hindrance arising from the classification of eration of the public the various parts of selection is annually made from the best boys according to the studies they pursue, this system, connected as they are into one boys of the first class, who are transferred to and not according to their disposition and orderly and admirable whole. We shall the English Classical or to the Latin Gram- capacity for making progress in them. The make a brief extract of the information this mar School, to perfect the studies which they intelligent and quick are thus made lazy by pamphlet contains, certain that, while many have begun or to pursue those of a higher the necessity of imposing only such tasks as even in Boston are ignorant of the great character. In the writing schools the ex- the dull can learn, and the few who aremost good that is among them, to residents of ercises are few and simple, and a very ju- industrious are retarded by the indolent other towns these facts must be new, and dicious use is made of the system of mutual many. In these schools this difficulty is alto all, everywhere, interesting. instruction. In July, 1823, the average most wholly obviated. As the boys reach number of boys in each school exceeded two the top of the class they are taken off by hundred, and of the girls, one hundred and ten or twelve and formed into a distinct seventy. The salary of the master is $1200 class by themselves. As scholars are adand that of the assistant $600; the expense mitted but once a year, they soon get sorted of tuition is about nine dollars for each in this way with great accuracy; those scholar; there are in this city seven schools boys finding themselves together who are of this description, besides one in South able to learn about the same lesson. Boston and one for the coloured population. All the schools-excepting the primary In 1821 an experiment was made, in a dis-schools-are under the superintendance of

The Primary Schools, instructed by women, receive all children of either sex between four and seven years of age. In 1823 there were forty such schools for the white and two for the coloured population, and the whole number enrolled was 2,205, giving an average of 52 to each school, and an average of expense to the public of $4.72 per annum for the instruction of each

Στέφεται καλοῖς δούλοις,
Χαρίτεσσι συγχορεύων.
Lo the son of Cytherea

a school committee, consisting of the mayor "emptity." Whitehead was poet laureate. | loveliness, like a new creation. I cannot and aldermen, ex officio, and one gentleman All new poetry was submitted to the judg- better exemplify my meaning, than by chosen annually by each ward. They are ment of Johnson's powerful but prosaic tracing to its possible originals the following required by their own rules to examine the intellect; Pope and Young were in full beautiful picture of Collins'. schools once a month, and, by a law of the vogue,-Thompson was sneered at,-Gray Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round;ridiculed,-Collins utterly neglected,-and, Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound,— state, once a year. But one objection can possibly be urged to crown the climax, the Reviewer of And he amid his frolic play, against any part of these institutions. Per- Goldsmith's Traveller "in sad and sober As if he would the charming air repay, haps the system of animating the pupils in-earnest criticised it as a pamphlet in verse, Shook thousands odours from his dewy wings. This passage exhibits a striking instance to industry by the principle of emulation, on political economy." This state of things and rewarding them by medals, cards, &c. could not last; but it is with the literary of the blending of various images into one, of which the object is to distinguish them taste of a nation, as with the natural taste and thus presenting a picture entirely new. from their fellows, is carried too far. Emu- of an individual; when it has been pam-Though Anacreon says of Cupid, Ρόδα παῖς ὁ τῆς Κυθήρης lation easily becomes envy, and it is obvi-pered with high-seasoned sauces till the ously better to make the love of doing well appetite is jaded, it craves not nor relishes the ruling principle of a boy's activity, rath- substantial food, and can only be restored This er than the love of doing better than by a course of the simplest diet. book therefore seems to have been necesanother. sary to the English nation, before it could be prepared either to produce, or to receive and though Fairfax, in his translation of and relish such poets as Crabbe and Joan-Tasso, says of the angel Gabriel, He shook his wings with rosy May-dews wet; na Baillie and Wordsworth and Southey; poets, whose style, simple in artificial orna- and though Milton says of the angel Raphment, yet not utterly rejecting it, is the vehi- ael, cle of such poetry as would have been sufficient, had they only written, to have “Thus we have endeavoured to give a view of raised this age of English poetry to a fair the means, provided at the public expense, for the comparison with that of Elizabeth. gratuitous instruction of the children of all classes mention these four poets, because, perfectof the citizens of Boston. They are offered equally distinct as they are, from each other, ly to all. The poorest inhabitant may have his the style of them all is less ornate than that children instructed from the age of four to sevenof most of their contemporaries, and seems more deeply imbued with the colouring of an earlier and severer literature.

We close this article with stating one fact; that the whole expenditure of Boston, city and county, for 1823, was $197,977.60, of which $48,611.10 were expended for the schools;—and we will add to this fact, the last paragraphs of this pamphlet, which state strongly, but truly, the effect of this liberality.

teen, at schools, some of which are already equal, if not superior to any private schools in our country; and all of them may be so.

"Indeed if a child be kept at a Primary School from four to seven, and then at one of the Grammar schools until nine, and from that time till sev

enteen at the Latin and the English Classical school, there is no question but he will go through a more thorough and complete course of instruction, and in reality enjoy greater advantages than are provided at many of the respectable colleges in the Union."

their wings for a bolder flight.

We

of

Hath his locks y'crowned with roses,
While he dances with the Graces;

He shook his plumes, that heavenly fragi
filled

ance

The circuit wide; yet the imagery of Collins does not appear the less original; for he has compounded it from all the others, and taking something from each, has produced a new image of his own.

Every great poet has founded a school; but as each succeeding copy lost something It is not often that we are admitted to of the freshness of the original, at length the workshop of genius, but we know that the samness began to pall upon the reader's men of the most exalted powers must have ear, until some youthful aspirant, warned by materials to work upon; we know that the utter failure of his last predecessor, writers must form their style both of lan- perceived that he must cast his projected guage and thought upon the models of work in a new mould, and make a hazarothers. If the first essays of any of the dous experiment to reform the public living English poets were to be published, taste. Look at the History of Poetry;— Reliques of Ancient English Poetry; con- I doubt not that we should find among them the names of Homer and Virgil and Tasso sisting of old Heroic Ballads, Songs, and many imitations of the ballads which Percy long kept alive the hope that successive other pieces of our earlier poets, together has collected; indeed Scott and Southey generations might be blest with a successwith some few of later date. First Amer- and Byron have published their boyish ion of Epics; but Milton's was the last ican from the fifth London edition. Phil-poems, and among them such imitations Epic, and he dared to wander so far from adelphia, 1823. 3 vols. 8vo. are found. These are not however servile the beaten track, that his Hero cannot be MANY critics of the present day, acknowl-imitations, but are evidently the essays named. Look next at the Romances ;edge that the superiority of Modern Eng-powerful intellects, trying their strength they had their day, but they had become lish poetry over that of the age of Queen in short, low flutterings, and thus imping tiresome in the time of Chaucer, who callAnne, is mainly to be attributed to this ed in the aid of Italian literature, and work. It may seem surprising, that a book It is not by direct imitation of one par- founded a new school having him for its so unpresuming in its appearance, as Per- ticular model that excellence can be at- master. Lydgate and Hawes and Gower cy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry, should tained; but the course which these pocts wore out the style of Chaucer. Allegories have helped to produce so wonderful a rev-pursued was that which has been taken by and Madrigals were popular from the time olution in the public taste, as has evidently all truly great writers-to imbibe the spirit of Spencer and Withers, down to the days occurred since the time of its publication. of those who had gone before them, to of Henry More and Waller. Then indeed But the poetry and criticism of that day select the peculiar excellence of each great it was time to stop allegorizing in verse, were at a very low ebb; Pope and Addison master of their art, to melt down and amal-when an elegant scholar like More, and were gone; they had themselves been ser- gamate their several beauties in the alem- one whom a competent judge (Southey) vile imitators, and the still more grovelling bic of their own minds, and, out of all, proherd of their imitators, wrote as if smooth duce one harmonious form of elegance that metre and ambitious ornaments alone con- should ever thereafter be exclusively theirs. stituted poetry; no matter how trite the As with their style, so with their subjects. thoughts, if the lines were exactly balanc- They made their minds the storehouses of ed, nor how prosaic the subject, if an epi- beautiful images, gathered from all quarthet were crowded into each hemistich. ters—from nature and from books, and Whoever has the patience to examine brooded over them till they had analyzed the Magazine poetry of that day, will find them, and combined and remoulded them that the only quality for which the popular into perfect form, and could produce them poetry was then remarkable, was what a to the world, apparently the work of their critic has well expressed in one word-own imaginations, and gleaming in virgin

*We say the last Epic, because we conceive Voltaire's Henriade to be slumbering with Blackmore's Eliza and her brothers (whose numbers and names are forgotten), Wilkie's Epigoniad, Cumberland's Calvary, Glover's Leonidas, Hole's Arthur, Southey's Joan of Arc, and many more; Πάνθ ̓ ἅμα ταῦτα τέθνακε, καὶ ὤχετο κοινὸν ἐς Αδαν.

66

All together they perished, and went to the trunkmaker's workshop;" and because the narrative poems of the present day alike disclaim the laws and the name of Epic.

An oret, as sweet and good

the most delicious food, &c. &c. &c. &c. Dryden is a reverend name; but though Pope contrived to keep the runnings of his style sprightly, by mingling it with that of Boileau; yet from the hands of Darwin the public found that the draught was too vapid; it was become like the milk that Bloomfield tells of in his "Farmer's Boy,"

Three times skimmed-skyblue.

and Adam Blair. 12mo. 2 vols.

Reginald Dalton. By the author of Valerius, Ied the corner from the street, some retreating, ap-
parently, and others following; for, though none of
and anger in the tones of the voices.
them were moving at speed, there was opposition

THIS work is altogether inferior to Valerius,
but it is inferior, as it is produced by a less
powerful and sustained exertion of the same
talents. It does not, like that admirable
tale, stir up the spirit with the solemn and
magnificent picture of scenes and charac-
ters and ages, in, este d with an almost sanc-
tified interest;-
;-but it is a very pleasant
and interesting novel, which no one could
write without the aid of brilliant and varied
talents, aud few can read without pleasure

if not profit. The hero is a young man,

who leaves his father in a country vicarage,
goes to Oxford, becomes dissipated, spends
more money than he should, falls into many
difficulties, and among others, into love; and
after much distress extricates himself by
good fortune and good conduct, marries his
mistress, and recovers the family estates
which had been iniquitously withheld from

Say the word, then; speak it out,' cried one voice. Say Town, dye, or I'll floor your carcass.'

Gown or Town?' roared another; speak, or by jingo

Stand back, stand back, I say; halt, you knaves,' shouted a third- I am a clergyman.' ****

'Reginald could no longer be mistaken: He seized the poker, got out upon the balcony, and dropt on the pavement in a twinkling. 'Gown or Town? Gown or Town?"

Mr Keith, Mr Keith, here stand beside me,

Cowards! rascals! back, you scoundrels!--sir.' "A violent tussle ensued: one fellow aimed a

blow at the priest's head, which he parried secunthat attacked Reginald, one got a push in the midriff dum artem, and returned with energy. Of two that made him sick as a dog; the other, after inflicting a sharp cut with his stick, was repaid by a crashing blow that might have shivered the scapula of a Molineaux. The priest and another fellow, getting into close embrace, rolled down together, town uppermost, in the kennel. Black eyes and bloody noses were a drug. Reginald broke a This novel is of very equal interest bludgeon; but the poker flew from his grasp in dothroughout, and almost any extracts would in so. Fists sounded like hammers for a few secbe fair specimens; but the living and mov-ods; and then Town, first retreating for a few ing picture of Oxford entertained us more paces in silence, turned absolute tail, and ran into the street screaming and bellowing, Town! than any other part of the book, and we pre- Town! TOWN!" sent to our readers some of its principal

his father.

features.

The priest is a little injured in the scuffle-Dalton waits upon him home, and there catches a glimpse of the heroine, who is indeed most delightfully conceived and drawn; she has almost all the delicacy and innocent purity and fortitude of the Athanasia of Valerius, and much more than all her spirit and life.

A soft female voice said from within, 'Who's there?' 'It's me, my darling,' answered the old man, and the door was opened. A young girl, with a candle

"A very prosaic animal must he be, who for the first time traverses that noble and ancient City of the Muses, without acknowledging the influences of the GENIUS LOCI; and never was man or youth It is needless to pursue the history to our less ambitious of resisting such influences than own times, seeing that none of the styles Reginald Dalton. Born and reared in a wild, sesince Pope's can be said to be worn out, town of any sort, until he began the journey now questered province, he had never seen any great though Rogers has made that of Goldsmith just about to be concluded. Almost at the same a little too drawling. Neither do we think hour of the preceding evening, he had entered Birit necessary to trace the similar mutations mingham; and what a contrast was here! No which the poetry of France and Italy has dark, narrow brick lanes, crowded with wagons in her hand, appeared in the entrance, and uttered no flaring shop-windows, passed and repassed by undergone. We believe however from this jostling multitudes-no discordant cries, no sights something anxiously and quickly in a language hasty survey, that we may safely pronounce of tumult, no ring of anvils-every thing wearing which Reginald did not understand. Mein susses it to be a dangerous thing for a young man, the impress of a grave, peaceful stateliness-hoary kind,' he answered my bonny lassie, it's a mere who is ambitious of becoming a poet, to towers, antique battlements, airy porticos, majestic scart, just a flea-bite-I'm all safe and sound, colonades, following each other in endless successthanks to this young gentleman. Mr. Dalton, alstudy his cotemporaries; he will be temption on either side-lofty poplars and elms ever low me to have the honour of presenting you to ed to admire one more than another; this and anon lifting their heads against the sky, as if my neice, Miss Hesketh. Miss Hesketh, Mr. Dalexclusive admiration will lead him to direct from the heart of those magnificent seclusions-ton. But we shall be better acquainted hereafter, imitation of his favourite; and thus he will wide, spacious, solemn streets-every where a I trust.' become the copyist of another's style, in- monastic stillness and a Gothic grandeur. Except-ly by the hand, and repeating his request that he The old man shook Reginald most affectionatestead of being (according to the first mean- ing now and then some solitary gowned man pac should go instantly home, he entered the house ing slowly in the moonlight, there was not a soul ing of the name he seeks) the Maker of his in the High-street; nor, excepting here and there the door was closed-and Reginald stood alone own. But he may fearlessly ponder over a lamp twinkling in some high lonely tower,' upon the way. The thing had passed in a single the works of his predecessors, for common where some one might, or might not, be unspher- instant, yet when the vision withdrew, the boy felt sense will teach him to avoid the reviving ing the spirit of Plato,' was there any thing to show as if that angel-face could never quit his imaginaof an antiquated style. that the venerable buildings which lined it were tion. So fair, so pensive-yet so sweet and light a smile-such an air of hovering, timid grace-such a clear, soft eye-such raven, silken tresses beneath tha flowing veil-never had his eye beheld such a creature-it was as if he had had one momentary glimpse into some purer, happier, lovlier world

Therefore are we glad to see Percy's Reliques republished in this country; the simplicity and elegance of many of the songs and ballads cannot fail to please, and their day of dangerous popularity is gone by. Of the numerous imitations which followed their first publication, few have survived, and of these, few that we have seen are worth reading except those of Lucius Junius Mickle. He was a genuine poet, whose works have been too much neglected; but he translated, and he imitated, and he is almost forgotten.

actually inhabited."

Dalton is shown to a tavern, and is soon

induced to leap from the window thereof,
by an assault on Mr Keith, a Catholic
clergyman, with whom he had become ac-
quainted, and who is quite an important
personage in the story.

than this."

"He stood for some moments riveted to the spot where this beautiful vision had gleamed upon him. He looked up and saw, as he thought, something "The bed-room, to which Betty Chambermaid white at one of the windows-but that too was conducted our young gentleman, was in a part of the gone; and, after a little while, he began to walk one of a great number situated along the line of an house very remote from their supper-parlour. It is back slowly into the city. He could not, however, but pause again for a moment when he reached open wooden gallery, and its windows look out up- the bridge;-the tall fair tower of Magdalen apon a lane branching from the street that gives en-peared so exquisitely beautiful above its circling trance to the inn. Reginald, seeing that there was groves-and there was something so soothing to We shall in our next number proceed to still fine moonlight, went to the window to peep out his imagination (pensive as it was at the moment) examine somewhat more closely, the char-threw up the sash, and was leaning over the balco-him within its fringe of willows. He stood leanfor a moment, ere he should undress himself. He in the dark flow of the Cherwel gurgling below acter and uses of the work, whose title we have prefixed to this article.

ny, contemplating a noble Gothic archway on the ing over the parapet, enjoying the solemn loveliother side of the lane, when several persons turn- ness of the scene, when, of a sudden, the universal