demonstration of the senses, man still believes that there is something in him that lives after death. The mind is so infinitely superior in character to this case of flesh that incloses it, that he cannot persuade himself that it and the body perish together." pp. 14, 15.

We note with increasing interest the appearance of passages like these in the writings of professed skeptics and infidels. The coarse and bald atheism, which was once affected by minds from whom better things might have been expected, has lost the attraction which it derived for a time from novelty, and from being associated with courage and daring, and a spirit of resistance to tyrannical impositions. The consequence will be, the consequence has been, that enlightened men, the friends of humanity and freedom, every where are coming to look on the wretched delusion with unmixed disgust and horror. Atheism, from being almost exclusively a disease of enthusiastic and cultivated minds, has become almost exclusively the disease of ignorant and base minds. It may show itself in the lower classes, but it has been abandoned by the higher; it is ignorance and conceit tricking themselves in the miserable sophistries which the philosophy that invented them has long since discarded.

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ART. X.-Remains of the Rev. EDMUND D. GRIFFIN, COMpiled by FRANCIS GRIFFIN: with a Biographical Memoir of the Deceased, by the Rev. JOHN M VICKAR, D. D., Professor of Moral Philosophy, &c., in Columbia College. In 2 volumes. New York. 1831. pp. 456 and 466.

We know nothing of Mr. Griffin but from the work before us. Every thing that is here presented to us is presented for the first time. The fine head, that fronts the title-page, is one that revives no recollections in our minds. We had nev

er even heard the name of the original. Nor is this singular. He lived at a distance from us, and died young. He had but just entered into the public duties, which his talents and zeal had made various, when he was suddenly taken away from

them all. But sympathy has something electric about it that disregards distance, and perhaps there is more pleasure in introducing the merits of an accomplished stranger into our own circle, than in recommending to others a familiar friend. It is from this impulse that we are led to speak of these vol

umes.

Mr. Griffin appears to be one of that beautiful company, which we are always at a loss whether to call a small or a numerous one. It is composed of the richly gifted and early lost. It is small, if we consider only the names of those, who have made themselves an after-life in the remembrance of mankind. That must of course be small. The eminent must always be few. Such is the necessity of things, at least in this world of relations. But the class is numerous, if we count it according to the strength of our own attachments, imaginations, and expectancies, the many fond regrets that are sure to accompany the departure of what we gloried and trusted in, and the many brilliant and reasonably cherished hopes, that it pleases God often to destroy. It is a sentiment deeply fixed in our nature, that what is prematurely excellent is not destined to last. The sentiment is almost as old as human records, yet as tender as the wounded heart under its latest bereavement. It is written among the precepts of religious consolation, and heard among the daily complaints of human disappointment. Whom the Gods love die young,' said a Greek poet of unknown antiquity. Another writer, equally unknown, but of far worthier and holier celebrity, has repeated the same thing: 'He pleased God and was beloved of him, so that he was translated; yea, speedily was he taken away.' We are reminded of these two sayings, one of Gentile and the other of Jewish origin, showing that the root of both is in our common humanity, -by the appearance of these volumes. We believe that the spirit which speaks in them is one, with which those sayings have a close connexion and prophecy. We are ready to acknowledge it as possessed of rare endowments, and to utter our lament over what appears to our imperfect sight its untimely departure. We respect the feelings, that have prompted those who were most familiar with it while it was here, to raise this monument to it now that it is gone; not of lifeless marbles or senseless shrubbery, but of those more durable materials, its own affections and thoughts. We honor the

pious wish to spread the knowledge of an accomplished son and brother beyond the limits of his immediate sphere of activity and love, and thus give a wider celebrity to a cherished

name.

The Biographical Memoir,' with which the volumes begin, is an uncommonly interesting sketch of its subject. It was prepared by a gentleman, who witnessed and enjoyed the extraordinary promise which he gave in his school days, by the quickness of his abilities, the purity of his character, and his persevering zeal; and it cannot well be read by any young man, without inspiring the love at least, if not the emulation, of kindred excellencies. It is indeed a lovely picture of an ambitious but ingenuous youth, who never disappointed his friends but when he died, and whose filial duty and fraternal affection render doubly appropriate the tribute, that this work is meant to pay to his memory.

The principal and much the most agreeable part of these 'Remains,' is a tour through Italy and Switzerland, in the year 1829. It is written in a free and animated manner, not entering into tedious details, but presenting what chiefly engaged the mind of the traveller, distinctly to the reader. They who have been ramblers, like him, over those lands of enchantment, where nature has lavished all her majesty and beauty, and art exhibits its most splendid marvels, and the soul is made to overflow with sentiments and reflections, such as can be felt in their fulness nowhere besides, will take pleasure in retracing their steps with so intelligent and enthusiastic a companion. While they, who can visit the objects and scenes that are most eagerly sought abroad, only through the relations of another as they sit at home, and whose fancy must supply the place of the returned voyager's recollections, will scarcely find any where so much information so briefly and feelingly conveyed, as in this unpretending but spirited journal.

The next considerable portion of the work is made up of fragments from a course of Lectures on Roman, Italian, and English literature. These lectures were composed at a call wholly unexpected, immediately after his arrival from Europe, and delivered from the chair of the Rev. Professor M'Vickar, in Columbia College. They continued,' says his biographer, 'through the months of May and June, being prepared, written out, and delivered, almost it may be said at

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the same moment. They extend to more than three hundred pages octavo; a degree of manual as well as intellectual labor, not often paralleled; and when coupled with the recollection of it being a voluntary unbought service, taken up without premeditation, in the very moment of return, carried on without aid, and completed in the midst of all the interruptions incident to such a period of congratulation, it may be said without exaggeration, that they remain a noble monument of promptitude, diligence, and knowledge, and afford a rich sample of what might have been effected by him had life heen spared.' From the extracts that are presented to us, we do not wonder at the admiration with which this effort of his was received. They show a tasteful mind, stored with knowledge, and trained to habits of reflection.

His style is not wholly free, perhaps, from those faults, which easily beset a young and ardent writer, who composes rapidly and with a dangerous facility; but it always flows on with a clear and generous current. The severer taste of maturer life, if he had been spared to see it, would doubtless have chastened that tendency to exuberance, which is after all one of the failings of genius. We have room but for a single quotation, which will give our readers a favorable though a very fair specimen of his talent in description.

'It was on the morning of our leaving Turin, that I had a better view than on any preceding occasion, of the magnificent scenery with which it is surrounded. Starting at 6 o'clock, we soon arrived at the bridge of the Po, and I looked of course for the mountains. My hope of seeing them was but small, as day had only just begun to break. However, far in the horizon, opposed to the coming sun, I perceived a faint red, which served to mark their outline. While the rest of the world was still buried in night, they were privileged to catch the beams of day. By and by their color warmed into a rich roseate hue, which contrasted beautifully with the violet tint of the mist that lay in darkness at their feet. As morning advanced, a red hot glow succeeded, and the vast amphitheatre of Piedmont was, in its whole western section, lighted up with an ineffable and overwhelming radiance. Meanwhile the eastern horizon was not unworthy of attention. The golden hues of an Italian sky formed a magnificent back-ground, against which were relieved the towers of the Superga, and the picturesque outline of the neighbouring hills. Scarcely had I time to contemplate this part of the scene and turn towards the mountains, before their

aspect was again changed. The mist had fallen like a curtain at their feet, and the precarious tints of dawn had ripened into a twilight gray. The mountains themselves, in their whole vast extent, now seemed a wall of fire. I am using no figure of rhetoric, and wish to be understood literally. Iron in the furnace could not have glowed with an intenser red, than did those stupendous masses in the rays of morning. Never did I witness a scene of such transcendent and overwhelming magnificence. A wall of fire, seeming almost as extensive as half the circumference of earth, its battlements and pyramids and towers shooting upwards into heaven, as if preparing to inflame those elevated regions; and above and still beyond, new spires catching the same fiery radiance, the bases of the mountains clothed in vapor, the valley pervaded with the gray mist of twilight, and the distant town relieved against this brilliant back ground, the majestic river, the rich eastern sky, composed a landscape which brought the tears into my eyes, and closing my lips in silence, precluded even the ordinary expressions of delight.' Vol. 1. p. 148.

We offer these volumes a welcome. There are some redundancies, especially in the frequent and minute descriptions of paintings which are not to be described. But we are sure that the influence which the book is suited to produce is a pure and good one. The author writes in the spirit of a scholar though without the least pedantry, and of one who is deeply enamoured of all the forms of beauty and good. Such a spirit can never display itself in vain.