picturesque forms. Sorrow and suspicion, pining regrets for the past, anguish for the present, and morbid predictions for the future, were in L. E. L. not moral characteristics, but merely literary resources. The wounded spirit, and the worm that never dies, were often terms of art, or means to an end." But in thus supposing that her sadness was feigned for effect, he forgets that trials are our common heritage, of which she must have had her share, and, like other poets, would most probably make use of her peculiar gift as a" vehicle for revelations of the heart." And who that has read the story of her life, will doubt that she had cause for sadness? Her wit and genius, her youth and personal attractions, her affectionate, generous, ingenuous, enthusiastic, independent, and innocent spirit, and, still further, her great popularity as a writer, made her a prominent object for the shafts of jealous calumny, and offered her as a prey to the "spiders of society," "Who weave their petty webs of lies and sneers, Surely it was enough to bring sadness upon any pure-minded woman, and particularly one of her sensitiveness, to be made the victim of envious malevolence, and of the infamous rumors which it had invented and circulated. Happily she had something to sweeten her cup of bitterness; her numerous friends among the wise and good offered her their sympathies, and assured her of their undiminished confidence, which made amends for the world's injustice, and enabled her to endure its censure. Society also continued to extend to her its welcome greeting, thus affording her the most satisfactory evidence that a vindication of herself was unnecessary from slanders originally spread by the malicious, and remembered only by those whose own wickedness ever makes them suspicious of others' virtue. But still, to prove that all these marks of affection and attention were merely palliatives, and not cures, and that the whole vista of her future life must have been permanently darkened by these passing shadows, we need only advert to the fact of her voluntary severance of the tie which bound her to one she loved, in compliance with the "dictates of high-minded feeling, and nice sense of honor, and delicate pride." L. E. L. was a woman of heart, and must have known, when she did violence to her affections, and gave back to her lover his plighted vow, that it would be the wreck of all her earthly happiness, and her subsequent melancholy history proves that it actually was so. In our view it was an unnecessary sacrifice, for which we cannot account; for, supposing her pride to have been a stronger passion than her love, as is often the case in the female heart, it certainly would not have afterwards permitted her to marry a man whom she did not love, if it had required of her to decline marrying one to whom she had been betrothed, and whom she did love, Mr. Blanchard's account of both occurrences leaves them alike unexplained and inexplicable. Equally unsatisfactory is his account of her mysterious death; he gives a full detail of all the circumstances connected with it which the several investigations had brought to light, but they lead to no certain conclusion, and, in fact, from the very nature of the case, none can be expected. The most important results obtained from them are the complete disproval of the opinion first entertained, that her death was caused by her own hand, and a full exoneration of the individuals of her household from the suspicions which had fallen upon them. In the absence of all certainty we can only form conjectures as to the cause of this lamentable event, and we know of none more probable than that loneliness of situation, want of sympathy of female friends, and of her usual domestic comforts, and insalubrity of climate, may together have so reduced her moral and physical strength, as to make her fall an easy victim to the sudden attack of some violent malady, which came on in the night. In one of her poems a fictitious character is made to utter a prediction so singularly applicable to herself, that by the aid of a little superstition it might be regarded as a presentiment of what was to befall her; indeed, the actual prophetic power would not have enabled her to foretell her own sad fate more precisely than it is done in this remarkable passage: "Where my father's bones are lying, Mine shall be a lonelier ending, Mine shall be a wilder grave; Where the shout and shriek are blending, Or, perhaps, a fate more lonely In some drear and distant ward, 4. Remarks upon Usury, and its Effects. THIS is a business-like, well-written letter, on an important subject, by a practical man, but one obviously more familiar with the details than the principles of currency. His argument is, that USURY, in some form or other, whether that of interest, commission, or premium, on drafts, has been the leading cause of all the derangement and ruin of the country for the last six years; that the banks have been the chief instruments of that injury, and that for this evil a well-ordered national bank is a remedy. Now, holding this, as we do, to be the all-important question before the country, we would wish, even in this our cursory notice, to set this argument in a somewhat juster light than is here done. Two errors are involved in our author's statement. First, in assigning UsURY as the cause of the evil; and, secondly, in regarding a well-ordered national bank but as one among many remedies, instead of the sole remedy for this acknowledged evil. His first error is a logical one. He puts the effect for the cause. High price of money, premium on bills, and all other indications of a deranged currency, which he combines under the name of usury, are obviously in themselves results-the measure of the injury, and not the cause of it; nor can our present evils be corrected, nor future ones avoided, without looking deeper into their origin. This Our author's " primal" error is, however, one of language, the vague meaning which he attaches to the term " usury.' much abused term has obviously three distinct senses, and in all reasoning on it the choice should be made between them, and rigorbusly held to. There is its "primitive," which is also its "philosophical" meaning, that is, use, or usance of money. This meaning our author gives us in his motto from Shakspeare "He lends out money gratis, and brings down In this sense all payment for money is "usury." The second is its "legal" meaning, "interest beyond the law." This makes it a penal offence, but whether or not an economical injury to the public, (setting aside the breach of law,) depends on the law itself that regu lates it being a wise one. The third is its "moral" meaning, “extortion;" exacting from the necessities, or the ignorance of another, a price for the use of money beyond its fair open market price. Now, our author's argument jumbles together these various meanings of the word, and thus leads him to draw conclusions that are often practically false. "Usury," says he, "is the taking for money more than the use of money is worth." But what, we ask, is the measure of that worth? for he denies it to be "what it will bring," that is, its value in market overt. But if this be not its value, "demand," we mean, as compared with "supply," where else shall we seek its measure? It must be, necessarily, then, either in arbitrary law, or in vague individual judgment, what the money is worth in a man's business. The latter is, in truth, what our author argues, but vainly, we think, for what other practical measure of its value can be found than what men willingly pay for it in open competition? If this measure of value be abandoned, then must we come, necessarily, we say, to the only other alterna tive," usury laws," and penalty upon penalty to enforce them. Now, it is to guard against this deep-rooted, dangerous error, that we are here most anxious lest our author's authority should be urged in favor of what, we doubt not, he is in truth opposed to, the vain attempt to put down usury by penal statutes. The true remedy for these evils, which he too looks to, though, as before said, too vaguely, is a well-ordered national bank, and in this we join with him "heart and hand." This, and this alone, will cure that portion of the multifarious monied evils of our country, which our author huddles up under the general name of “ usury," but which, in stricter language, belongs to "the domestic exchanges of the country." We, therefore, should rejoice to see his remedy in operation-" A national bank, with a capital of fifty millions of dollars, with branches in every state in the Union," and we doubt not its prompt efficiency in regulating, as heretofore, all domestic exchanges, and bringing them down to the "minimum" rate admissible by the laws of trade. But here, too, we have a criticism on this point. Of the necessity of some rate" of exchange between distant commercial points, our author is in obvious error. He confounds" exchange" with "currency," and concludes, therefore, that "a uniform currency" involves, necessarily, "equality in the exchanges," and with this view he is for withdrawing from the national bank "the privilege of charging a premium for domestic exchange." But this is obviously absurd, and would but increase the evil it seeks to amend. The evil marked by "premium on bills," when currency is uniform, is overtrading, and the "premium" is its natural check and remedy. But forcibly to cast off this penalty on unwise speculation, would obviously be to encourage it, and thus to do harm instead of good to the sound commerce of the country. We commend this view of the question to our author should his work pass to a second edition, and also beg him to moderate his "tirade" against banks in general, or rather so far to qualify it as to show that this abuse of the chartered monied institutions of our country, is but the natural and necessary result of their being left without a NATIONAL REGULATOR. 5. Autobiography, Reminiscences and Letters of JOHN TRUMBULL, from 1756 to 1841. New York and London: 1841. Wiley and Putnam. New Haven: B. L. Hamlen. THE autobiography of Colonel Trumbull presents itself to our notice with a strong claim upon our indulgence as a production of venerable age. But that consideration apart, it has great interest as the personal narrative of one, who, by his patriotism, his revolutionary services, his talents as an artist, has acquired a title to the honors and gratitude of his country, and as a rich mine of curious and valuable reminiscences of the men and things of former days. The eye-witnesses of our great struggle for independence are reduced to a very few, and every new revelation they disclose is so much rescued from oblivion; the true spirit of history attaches great value to any source that furnishes even but one new fact; in this volume of Colonel Trumbull we have many hundreds. It is, however, more with the events of his career as an artist, than as a soldier, that his pages are filled; a point of military pride induced him to send in a resignation of his colonel's commission early in the year 1777, which, after some debate, was accepted by congress, and he never resumed his connection with the army except as a volunteer aide-de-camp to General Sullivan, for a short time, during his attack upon Rhode Island in the summer of 1778. His passion was his art, to which he had devoted his intervals of leisure from early life, and which became his steady pursuit after the year 1780, when he placed himself under the instruction of Mr. West in London; but this relation was soon interrupted. In the autumn of the same year, information was lodged with the government against him as a rebel and a traitor, on which charge he was committed to prison, and kept in close confinement for seven months, and then liberated by the intervention of Edmund Burke, on condition of leaving England within thirty days. After the peace Colonel Trumbull returned to London for the purpose of pursuing his profession there. Mr. Burke's former act of kindness to him was gratefully remembered, and he called on him to express his father's, and his own acknowledgments, for the service he had rendered him. The great orator received him courteously, and spoke to him of the pursuit he had chosen; from the part of the conversation reported by the colonel, Mr. Burke seems to have foreseen in our country a want which our present experience is strikingly exhibiting. "Do you not intend to study architecture?" asked Mr. B. Colonel Trumbull replied that he thought he knew enough already for his purpose in back-grounds, etc. "I do not mean that, Mr. Trumbull," said Mr. B.; " you are aware that architecture is the eldest sister, that painting and sculpture are the youngest, and subservient to her; you must also be aware that you belong to a young nation, which will soon want public buildings; these must be erected before the decorations of painting and sculpture will be required. I would, therefore, strongly advise you to study architecture thoroughly and scientifically, in order to qualify yourself to superintend the erection of these national buildings-decorate them also, if you will." We have found several passages of extraordinary interest in this work, which we would gladly cite would our limits permit; as they do not, we must content ourselves with recommending the entire volume to the perusal of our readers, and to their especial attention for the important information they communicate upon subjects |