יד

Now charge once more!

First, the ultimate effect of her larger poems, the Siege of Valencia, the Ves- God is with Spain and Santiago's sword Is reddening all the air! Shout forth, Castile; pers of Palermo, and the League of the The day is ours! I go!--but fear-ye not! Alps, is to render military enthusiasm For Afric's lance is broken, and my sons attractive and sublime. This effect is Have won their first good field. secured by having embodied in her favorite characters, as Gonzalez, Rai-, I wish not to withhold from any their mond, and the Swiss peasants, nay, even due. I grant that in this fiction there are in her best females, Ximena and Con- bright gleamings of grandeur. But they stance, all which is fascinating in the are all sullied by a spirit-the spirit spirit of war, separate from its savage- which men have too long extolled--the ness, and in her battles all their mag- reverse of that which Jesus felt and enA mind to suffer every thing nificence, the tall plumes, the standards joined. flung in glory to the wind, the proud rather than surrender a nation's liberty, steeds, to yield one's children to the sword, while the heart yearns tenderly over them, rather than brook meanness or treachery, is a noble spectacle. It is while the unutterable agonies and the more. It is an inspiring example. It demoniac rage which form the elements, makes us feel the nobleness of our naare scarcely seen,-if seen, only as dim ture. It raises us as thinking, and feelfigures traced on the distant outline and ing, and active beings. Where then is lost behind brighter images. the defect of this drama? Simply that

The very nature and high soul of man,

To be more particular. Some of my with all this nobleness, the spirit of war readers may need to be informed, that is blended throughout,-is, I had almost while Gonzalez, is governor of Valencia, said, identified. The proud heart, the this city is besieged by Abdullah, the fire of ambition, the fury of vengeance, Chief of a Moorish army. Alphonzo mingle with every motion of virtue, and Carlos, two sons of the Spanish nerve every purpose of freedom. It is Governor, are taken by the Moors; the too often forgotten that true heroism— condition of their ransom is the surren- all which ever appears in war to deder of the city; the only alternative is serve our admiration--may exist in a the destruction of the noble captives. higher form and free from the wicked Elmina, the wife of Gonzalez, under the passions which war demands and proinfluence of maternal feelings, swerves duces, in the bosom of the humblest for a time from her loyalty, and, finding Christian. To endure oppression withher way by disguise into the Moorish out servility and without reproach, to camp, engages as the price of her sons' bear injury without revenge, to love an ransom, to open a certain gate to the enemy, and pray for him and do him enemy. Gonzalez remonstrates-pre- good; to resist the temptations to indovents the execution of the design-en- lence, to covetousness and self-indulgages in battle with Abdullah. Mean- gence; to pass unshaken in our piety time, Ximena, his heroic daughter, and our hope of immortality through all having before performed every office which is prosperous and all which is adfor the wounded soldiers, and now ex-verse in life, oh, this is virtue, this is cited a band of citizens to rescue the courage; here is the field on which town, dies from love concealed till the man's bravest battle is fought and his hour of her death, to a youthful war- brightest garlands gathered! Hither rior slain in his country's battles. Her our nature summons its mightiest enermother's spirit is roused anew. Gon-gies! But here is no pride, no towerzalez enters mortally wounded; but ing ambition, no dark and destroying hearing that the city is stormed, he vengeance.

goes forth supported by his wife, to see There is pride, there is vaunting amthe issue, and at the moment when the bition, there is lowering vengeance, in Moors are overcome by the Prince and power of Castile, he expires animating the Spaniards with his last breath:

the best scenes of the Siege of Valencia, blending with the very elements of its virtues. There is each of these vices in

the Vespers of Palermo, connected in rosity, with pride, ambition, and reevery patriot except Raimond with base venge.

deception, with the degrading sentiment Nor from this fault are her smaller that those who have violated the rights poems all exempt. No suspicion seems of others, may be treated with uncere- to have reached her that war is a commonious treachery. Even of Raimond, bination, a close-wrought tissue, of evil the noblest of the patriotic band, who passions and evil actions, whose first spurned deceit and could tolerate naught and chief result is misery which passbut open daring and deed, the ruling es description. That she felt the enpassion was intense and inextinguishable thirst of military renown.

Oh! my soul from boyhood's morn Hath mus'd such mighty dreams! It was my hope

To leave a name, whose echo from the abyss of
time

Should rise and float upon the winds,
Into the far hereafter; there to be
A trumpet-sound, a voice from the deep tomb,
Murmuring-Awake!-Arise !--

A warlike spirit pervades also the
League of the Alps.

Secondly, as an ultimate effect, a grand sentiment excited by the whole plot and conduct of these poems, is military enthusiasm, so a selection of detached passages, however promiscuously made, would aid the same effect. The good tendency of many sublime portions of Paradise Lost has sometimes been doubted on the ground of their attaching to the apostate spirits a moral dignity sufficient to surround their crimes with

chantment of war is evident even from her Table of Contents. The Sword of the Tomb-The Cavern of the three Tells-Swiss Song on the Anniversary of an ancient Battle-The Bended Bow

On Egypt's burning plains
Beyond the pyramid o'erswayed

And the palm-trees yield no shade.

But let the angry sun
Unfelt by those whose task is done!
From heaven look fiercely red,
There slumber England's dead.

The hurricane hath might
Along the Indian shore,
And far by Ganges' banks at night,
Is heard the tiger's roar.

splendor. Yet Milton is studiously care-With fearful power the noon-day reigns,
ful to prevent this effect, to show us that
their deeds as well as words, whatever
may be their semblance of worth, are
devoid of its substance. In this he imi-
tated the arrangements of Divine Pro-
vidence. As if to exercise our powers of
moral discrimination, or to try our at-
tachment to virtue, God often permits in
one character manifest imperfection and
great excellence, leaving, however, noth-
ing which is attractive in the imperfee-
tion itself. Could this high example be
universally followed in the creations of
mind, could war be described by poets
precisely as it appears in the campandon
the field, I should have no fear as to the
moral effect. Such descriptions they do
not furnish. Mrs. Hemans has not fur-And
nished them. Her best passages com-
bine with the course of the action to leave
one impression, to jumble together, as
Locke might have it, the right and the
wrong, the spirit of liberty and of gene-

For

But let the sound roll on
It hath no tone of dread

those that from their toils are gone,
There slumber England's dead.

Loud rush the torrent-floods,
The western wilds among,
free in green Columbia's woods
The hunter's bow is strung.

But let the floods rush on!

Let the arrow's fight be sped!
Why should they reck whose task is done?
There slumber England's dead,

The mountain-storms rise high

In the snowy Pyrenees

mands me to seek the honor which cometh only from God; and I see him en

And toss the pine-boughs through the sky, during the contempt and hatred of men.

Like rose-leaves on the breeze.

But let the storm rage on!
Let the forest wreaths be shed!
For the Roncesvalle's field is won,
There slumber England's dead.

The warlike of the isles,
The men of field and wave!
Are not the rocks their funeral piles,
The seas and shore their grave?

Go, stranger! track the deep,
Free, free the white sail spread!
Wave may not foam, nor wild wind sweep,
Where rest not England's dead.

When I ask for power, there is one who promises nothing; and I see him the servant of all. When I cry for revenge, there is one to say, Resist not evil;and I hear his own prayer for his enemies, FATHER FORGIVE THEM! Blessed Jesus! are these thy disciples, who raise the war-shout, and mingle in the thickest of the fight? Is this the spirit which thou art exalted to bestow? Oh, thine is another influence! Send it down, immortal Prince of peace, till men shall live together, and love as brethren! Inspire with its holy power every gifted soul; breathe it over the deep toned harp, till from every mountain, and field, and temple, and habitation of man, the strains of Bethlehem shall be echoed back to the skies!

MILITARY GLORY.

T.*

It is estimated that more than a mil

That England's dead are on every soil and beneath every wave may be true. The impression which this description is designed to leave, is, that the fact is glorious. Is the impression just? To say nothing of the cause for which they were left in Egypt and in Spain, why should they slumber along the shores of India, and within the wood of Columbia? To gratify ambition and avarice. lion of bushels of human and inhuman Why for centuries have they been left bones were imported last year from the within the Provinces of France, and be-continent of Europe, into the port of neath the waves which now pass in peace Hull.-The neighborhood of Leipsic, where once they bore conflicting navies? Austerlitz, Waterloo, and all the places To establish and augment power. Our where, during the late bloody war, the eccentric orator of Roanoke left a truer principal battles were fought, have been though less poetic impression, when he swept alike of the benes of the hero and affirmed that " England has been for of the horse which he rode. Thus colcenturies the game-cock of Europe."lected from every quarter, they have I do not say this in disparagement of been shipped to the port of Hull, and England. It is the land of laws, of thence forwarded to the Yorkshire bone religion, and of virtue, beyond any in grinders, who have erected steam enEurope. But it is far from perfection; gines, and powerful machinery, for the and its countless wars have fixed on it purpose of reducing them to a granelary an indelible disgrace. That we have state. In this condition they are sent suffered less, and been less guilty, we chiefly to Doncaster, one of the greatest owe, not to better disposition, but to agricultural markets in that part of the more felicitous circumstances. country, and there sent to the farmers From this oppressive example of the to manure their lands. The only subfollies, the crimes, and the miseries of stance gradually evolving, as the bone war, and from the poetic splendor by calcines, makes a more substantial mawhich it is blazoned, I turn to repose on nure than almost any other substancea nobler model and a purer morality.-particularly human bones. It is now When I am fired with ambition, there is ascertained, beyond a doubt, by actual one who tells me to be meek and lowly experiment, upon an extensive scale, in heart; and I see him humbling him- that a dead soldier is a most valuable self to an inglorious death. When I article of commerce, and for ought we thirst for glory, there is one who com-know to the contrary, the good farmers

of Yorkshire are indebted to the bones of genius of America is laid on the altar of se. their children, for their daily bread. It paration, may a voice from heaven exclaim, is certainly a singular fact, that Great Britain should have sent out such multitudes of soldiers to fight the battles of its country upon the continent of Europe, and should then import their bones as an article of commerce, to fatten their soil.

"Your Union must ever be considered as a main WASHINGTON, prop of your Liberty."

The following extract is from the able pen of Thomas S. Grimke, Esq., of Charleston, S. C., and we would commend it to the careful perusal of every reader, not so much because we suppose any of our readers are indulging the idea that we must be dis-united, but because we think light and knowledge are the best preventatives of even an indulgence of the thought, that it is possible for the people of this country to be associated together in clans, or divided out into small republics.

Hold! hold!" In vain, may the bleeding image of their country arise and point to her wounds; each will exclaim in the language of the murderer Macbeth "Thou canst not say, I did it." In vain, may they call up the spirit of Washington to hallow their rites: like the prophet at Endor, he shall look but to blast, and speak but to curse.

I pass over the scenes immediately succeeding the separation. I shall not survey the anxiety of the public mind, the interruption of private concerns, or the stagnation of foreign and domestic intercourse. I shall not pourtray the violence of party, the intrigues of powerful states, the cabals of individuals, and the efforts of foreign nations. suppose the boundaries of the Stafes defined, their constitutions established, and treaties of alliance formed between them, and with other

governments.

Let us

These new republics thus arising from the ruins of one, would present the most flattering prospects. The gloomy countenance of despondence, has already brightened into hope, and doubt is exchanged for the confidence inspired by certainty.

For a season, the affairs of these commonand wisdom. Public virtue might be the rule wealths might be conducted with moderation of action at home, and public faith towards each other and the rest of the world. But this could not long be the state of indepenWhile the dent and neighboring nations.

"The American, who can look forward with calmness to the day of the separation of the union, must be either more, or less than man.-He must be the victim of ambition parent lives, his authority and affection may or corruption; a deluded enthusiast, or a pro- preserve the harmony of his family circle; phet of good, which the most sanguine dare but when he dies, the cessation of personal not hope, and the keen-eyed statesman cannet intercourse produces coldness, and difference foresee. Thenceforward the American eagle shall drop the olive-branch of peace, and grasp only the arrows of war. The hand, which writes the declaration, shall feel the blood cur dle in its veins; and the tongue, which reads it to the world, shall stiffen in the act. The mountains that divide us, shall be "the dark mountains of death," and the streams that flow between, like the waters of Egypt, shall be turned into blood.

of interest creates difference of sentiment, perhaps even ennuity. The human nature of nations is like that of individuals; for after any great change, the man and the people are equally circumspect and moderate. But selfishness unfortunately too soon succeeds to duty, and the principle of ambition to the principle of usefulness.

In a short time we should see the confirmation of the reasoning already advanced. We But terrific as is the picture, which antici-should see the fatal progress of party spirit, of pation presents, let us gaze upon it, resolutely foreign influence, of local policy, of clashing We and calmly. Conceive the eventful crisis ar interests, and of individual intrigue. rived, when the delegates of America meet to should look in vain, for the principles of sever our confederacy. Unlike the glorious union, renovation, and improvement; in vain Congress, which declared us independent, un- for the liberal views and dignified firmness of like the equally glorious Convention, which a united government; in vain for the respect frained our Constitution, they would join to and honorable alliance of foreign powers. destroy the fairest edifice, that human hands Let us not rest satisfied, however, with this have ever raised. Already is their object at- cursory survey, but carefully examine the tentained. With one voice they pronounce us dency of interest and arabition. Were we free and independent of each other. They assured that these republics would always undash on the earth the Tables of our common derstand and pursue their real welfare, that alliance; they inarch in triumph to kindle the they would discard the influence of selfishness flame, that is to consume the temple of union and local prejudice; that they would be ready and hear with a smile the loud crash, as it to acknowledge and change impolitic measinks in ruins. In vain when the youthfulsures, and to enter into the liberal and more

THE CALUMET.

[MAY & JUNE enlightened schemes of their neighbors, we or had the minister of one undertaken to act, might promise ourselves that they would be as Genet did under Washington's adminis permanent and happy. In a few years, how-tration, how dark must have been the page of ever, we should behold the operation of a history, that would have recorded the conseprinciple already mentioned as important: quences! If one state were disaffected to the that different, yet connected interests, ought confederacy, of which it formed a part, what to be governed by the same hand. Were pencil can paint the scene of contention, inthey independent, the same effects never could trigue, and anxiety that must ensue. These arise; but when associated, they induce each causes have been considered in themselves, party to imagine, that they have superior but when we embrace within our view, the claims on the other. From this source would co-operating influence of other states and of spring misunderstanding, contention, perhaps foreign nations, may we not exclaim with even a temporary cessation of intercourse; the poet, and these unpropitious events would be favorable to the machinations of party, and the intrigues of other nations.

"On the tomb of hope interred,

"Scowls the sceptre of despair."

Let it not be said that a sense of interest would guide them. Few nations have ever Attendant on these calamities, would also be had the discernment, and still fewer the virtue the growing power of individuals, and of miliand resolution, to consult their real welfare. tary establishments. In times of danger, it is In vain, did Demosthenes urge a war against not on the wisdom and firmness of legislaturs Philip; in vain, did Burke dissuade from only, that reliance is placed; but also on the American taxation; and Chatham plead, with talents and authority of an individual. At his own immortal eloquence, for conciliatory that moment, when too often the rights of all measures with the colonies. Those casual are governed by a single arm, and the voice of or trifling events, which often decide the fate one is the collected voice of a nation, who of human affairs, would have a fatal influ- would trust the glory and liberty of his counence.* Diversity of character would give ad- try, but with another Washington? The ditional weight to every cause, that would general then, would no longer be the private militate against reconciliation. The resent- citizen, called out by the free choice of his ment or ambition of individuals, the interest-countrymen, but the celebrated warrior pointed views of particular classes or established out by the urgency of the times. ments, and a variety of unforeseen circum-soldier would cease to be the farmer or mestances, would darken the prospect. chanic, on a temporary pilgrimage from hoine,

The

"But strutting round, in gandy blue and red, "Would eat in idleness the poor man's bread."

To the jealousy of interest, we may add the jealousy of rights; for the pride of sove reignty is as baneful to nation, as the pride of intellect to individuals. The tendency of each is to induce disregard or contempt for The soothing hand of time, which often closes the claims, the power, or the remonstrances our wounds and dries up our tears, could neof others. This spirit is the natural emana- ver hold out the golden sceptre of peace. The tion of privileges long enjoyed, of indepen-principles of ruin like the breath of the pesdence universally acknowledged, and of con- tilence, would scatter terror and infection fidence in self-opinion. At a time when this around, and though like the rivers of lava, it temper would influence legislative delibera-sprang from one common source, would widen tion, few individuals would feel and act up to at every moment the circle of devastation. the principle of an eminent statesman, "that timidity with regard to the well being of our not only unanswered, but supplanted by othThus should we see the object of these states country, is heroic virtue." Few nationalers. councils would be so discerning and upright, peace, and beheld it changed for the triumph They had instituted the civil festival of as to show by their actions, that the true glo- of war. ry of a people is ever inseparable from their statesman with the olive of the citizen, and They had crowned the eminent real welfare. The consequence of such occur-saw it converted into the laurels of the warrences might be an appeal to arms. was a time, when the western people were ly in procession, to taste the waters of freeThere rior. The old man who had walked exulting. ready to march down to New Orleans; we dom from the fountain of a separate governhave seen some of the States agitated by inment, beheld the placid stream that flowed surrection and rebellion; and but lately the from it, suddenly sink from his sight, and General government resisted by the legisla- burst forth a dark and turbulent torrent. The ture of Pennsylvania. Had the affair of the young man, whose hand should have delightChesapeake concerned two of these republics,ed in the arts of peace, now grasps the glitter

"So paltry a sum as three pence, in the eyes of a financer; so insignificant an article as tea, in the eyes of a philosopher, have shaken the pillars of a commercial empire, that circled the whole globe."-Burke.