fulfilled the promise of his youth to a poet who, | Croaker wrote of the Recorder, there was a sudperhaps, like so many clever men, only promised. den clang of the tocsin, a rush of knights and Mr. Bryant's paper, as reported, was rather de- retainers, a brisk leaping to horse, and from all voted to personal reminiscences and anecdotes sides doughty warriors came pricking to the fray than to an estimate of Halleck's genius or work to strike a resounding blow upon the helmet of in literature, and, indeed, he finished by reading the ruthless invader of sacred tradition. To hear a criticism upon his friend's poetry, which he Halleck's claims to immortal renown defied, to said that he wrote thirty-five years ago, and hear the very father-singers themselves described which expressed the admiration that he still as spirited youths who wrote imitatively, and classcherished for him. ed as a kind of cockney authors of limited talent and local fame, who were bright chiefly by the absence of stronger light, seemed such an intolerable insult that nothing but the most summary revenge would satisfy justice. The writer of such aspersions was a "criticaster." His remarks were a "coarse and vulgar diatribe." No "fair-minded reader can fail to be disgusted with the cool air of superiority assumed by the writer," and with "his frequent petty flings and poisoned arrows of malignity." And again,

would be a good subject for a critical flagellation." And once more, “Mr. Halleck is above our praise as much as his censor is below our respect." And finally, "What could induce any litterateur of average critical capacity, with the least respect for truth, with the slightest tincture of courtesy, with a particle of pride in him, as a man and an American, for one of the few' literary of American names that were not born to die, thus wantonly and churlishly to attack and depreciate the poetic character of one of our six foremost authors-Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne, and now Halleck, with the immortal, leaving only the eldest two of the true poets of America to complete the select band-we can not imagine."

There was some especial interest in the occasion apart from the subject and the speaker; for there has been a little acrimony of feeling shown in regard to some criticisms upon Halleck which appeared in the Nation. Soon after the death of the poet that paper published an article upon “Knickerbocker Literature," which was warmly resented by some censors as insolent and vulgar, and an insult to the memory of a sweet poet and blameless man. Indeed the acrimony of the rejoinders was remarkable; for, although the judg-"This pseudo-critic deserves a roasting, and ment of Halleck and of some of his local contemporaries, including Irving, was not flattering, the article was extremely clever and the opinions evidently not those of an unintelligent critic. The argument of the paper was, that when New York was a much smaller city, and, after the English Addisonian manner, was called by the bright young students of the Spectator and Tatler "the town," there was a coterie of clever and accomplished men, among whom were Halleck, Drake, Paulding, Robert Sands, and Irving himself, who wrote sparkling ephemeral essays and vers de société and stories, and who in the absence of cleverer competitors, and at a time when steam had not abolished the Atlantic Ocean, and the resolution was vigorous and universal that what was American should be maintained as superior against all comers, were held to be poets and novelists and the fathers of American literature. Of course those who are any where in sight of their half century remember the days when Homer and Herodotus and Eschylus and Sophocles and Thucydides were the Greek gods; and Virgil, Horace, and Cicero the Latin; and Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton the English, and Irving, Halleck, Dana, Drake, Percival, Sprague, Cooper, and others were the American. The hearty admiration of them was proportioned to the vigor of patriotism. The present active generation of men declaimed Marco Bozzaris at school, and they read in the class-books and Readers pieces which are read no more. These names and that literature have all the endearing charm of earliest associations. They were the traditions of literature, although the authors were yet living; and as one by one departed, as the poets Scott and Campbell, and even Byron, began to dwindle across the sea, as Eastburn and Sands became extinct at home, and new names and different fames began to glimmer, all the more fondly were the few of the old divinities who continued to be known cherished and jealously defended. "I can not find poetry in Maud," said Willis, who was not exactly one of the fathers but one of the fathers' sons, "but I delight in Praed."

The death of Halleck touched founts of peculiar tenderness in the school-boys grown older who used to "speak" his ringing lines, and those who had been educated in that school; and therefore, when a writer with the cleverness of those traditional men themselves wrote of them as the VOL. XXXVIII.-No. 227.-45

The Easy Chair has probably a higher regard for the talent and poetry of Halleck than the writer who is so tremendously castigated; but it has also so profound a confidence in the steadiness of the equator that it has not the least impatience with those who speak of it disrespectfully. Mr. Halleck was a charming companion, a man of poetic sensitiveness and lyrical facility, of a pleasant humor and fancy, who has written some verses that have the true lyrical fervor; but must we seriously class him with the great poets or concede to him a remarkable genius under pain of being suspected of some personal pique," or of "revenging some fancied slight or equivocal pleasantry?" Is it not indeed substantially true that he belonged to a literary region of which New York was the metropolis, that his muse had a local partiality, that there is a very decided imitative strain in much that he did, and that it is a curious injustice to his memory to insist upon calling him a great poet?

66

One pleasant morning, in Mr. Putnam's pleasant office in Park Place, Mr. Irving said to the Easy Chair with his twinkling smile, "The young fellows don't have half the chance that we had. We had it all our own way, with none to molest or make us afraid."

And the kind old gentleman assumed a humorous air of deprecation, as if begging pardon for his fame.

Mr. Irving was conscious, as every man is who reads the history of the time, that circumstances favored him and his contemporaries as few writers have ever been favored. Halleck, doubtless, knew the same thing. The unfortu

nate and misguided writer, now in the prisoner's | ened reprobate before us, to whom the just pundock and presently to be removed for execution, ishment of his crime shall immediately be meted? is of the same opinion. Moreover, he thinks Yet such charges were never made against their that Halleck's wit was often poor, and that even author, who was the late Horace Binney Wallace; his better writing "impresses the reader as being and although in the same paper upon Irving he the work of a somewhat elegant mind, stronger praises him very highly, as the culprit now preson the side of the understanding than on any ent for sentence would probably do if he had other, and of no great power upon any side." been writing of Irving instead of Halleck, yet Now, before turning another glance of scorn at the spirit of his article is that of an independthe wretched offender at the bar, may the court ent critic, like that of this miserable offender, please to listen. "Mr. Irving possesses but whose fate we humbly hope may be an awful little invention.... His conception of beauty is warning to all who are addicted to the use of the not rich or exquisite. In sentiment he is com- critical pen. monplace, dilute, and superficial. Of earnest, deep feeling he can scarcely be said to have any thing at all. Intellectual force or moral sensibility contribute but little to his works."

And now as the High Sheriff removes the body of the criminal to be broken upon the wheel, and hanged, drawn, and quartered, one warning limb to be hung over the office of every MagaIf the court please, are not these remarks upon zine in Knickerbocker land, will not the court Mr. Irving "petty flings" and "poisoned arrows charge the spectators of his melancholy fate to of malignity?" Do they not indicate "personal reflect whether we do not foster the development pique" or revenge for "some fancied slight?" Is of a noble literature when we declare that an not their author a criticaster" who utters a honest expression of intelligent literary judgment coarse and vulgar diatribe?" Are they not as is an insult, an outrage, a poisoned arrow of maoffensive as any thing alleged against the hard-lignity, and a fling?

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HISTORY.

Editor's Book Cable.

readers, can be called in question by none.

Im

"I the onsif, it re dispatch to the Secretary to sustain to this country, important as is the

the last forty years," says the Hon. Thom-portant as are the relations which Mexico is likely

of State, dated June 22, 1861, "Mexico has passed through thirty-six different forms of government; has had seventy-three Presidents." That is to say, she has changed her government about once a year, her chief executive about once in six months. The history of such a nation is the history of confusion worse confounded. The tangled skein would tax beyond its limits the patience of any reader. It is not strange that most Americans abandon the task in despair and leave a subject which baffles comprehension in unilluminated darkness. Mr. Abbot has wisely not attempted to tell the story of these annual revolutions. He has governed himself by a single aim, the desire to set clearly before the people of the United States the great issues which have underlaid these innumerable conflicts, and to interest the American Republic in the destinies of her nearest neighbor. For this purpose he has aimed less to weave into a single romantic story the tangled threads of a complicated era than to gather into a single volume materials which to most readers are simply inaccessible, and call to the stand witnesses whose testimony it is difficult if not impossible to impeach. In short, he is the attorney rather than the advocate of Mexico. He gathers the evidence and "makes up" the case. His book is not a plea for Mexico, but carefully collated evidence on her behalf. The translations from French and Spanish authors give the book especial value to the student of history; and the portraiture of Mexican society, and especially of the Mexican Church, while it will surprise many

Mexico and the United States; their Mutual Relations and Common Interests. With Portraits. By GORHAM D. ABBOT, LL.D. Putnam and Son. 1863.

ican problem, it has been too little understood by the American people, and Mr. Abbot's publication is a timely contribution, not only to the history of its past, but also to the solution of its probable future. While he writes as an historian he warmly advocates the view which we have unquestionable authority for stating will be espoused and maintained by the incoming administration. He earnestly opposes all schemes for the absorption of Mexico by the United States, and equally earnestly insists that cordial relations should be maintained between the struggling and as yet inorganic republic and its more favored neighbor.

THE history of pre-historic nations* sounds very like a bull; but here we have it in a work which will be regarded by scholars as a valuable contribution to a very dark subject; but by the people at large without enthusiasm, since most men are more interested in the condition of the race in the nineteenth century than in its probable condition in the early dawn of time. We can not but think that most of the speculations concerning the pre-historic nations rest on a slen der foundation, and that most of the elaborate chronological disputes only demonstrate what might be assumed-the ignorance of the disputers. Nevertheless, the lost civilization of the past is an interesting subject of inquiry. While we prefer to live in a modern house we should not disdain the opportunity to visit Herculaneum and Pompeii; and while our enthusiasms are all

Pre-Historic Nations; or, Inquiries concerning some of the great Peoples and Civilizations of Antiquity, and their probable Relation to a still older Civilization of the Ethiopians or Cushites of Arabia. By JOHN BALDWIN, A.M. Harper and Brothers. 1869.

directed to the life of the present, we are thank- |ing, which we think Mr. Bryant in his address ful that there are scholars who are willing to de- erroneously attributes to middle and later life. vote their energies to digging down beneath the Sensitive and shrinking, he always concealed incrustations of the ages and exhuming the life this deficiency, but it was the result of an acciof the past. To the American reader it will cer- dent occurring in his childhood. Two drunken tainly be a matter of regret that Mr. Baldwin militia-men, passing his father's door, thought has made no endeavor to elucidate the early con- to astonish the boy, then only two years old, as dition of America, or to explain the probable or- he was sitting on the door-step. For this purigin of her Aborigines, or the nature of that civ-pose they discharged their guns close to his head. ilization whose mounds and monuments seem to The concussion ruined the hearing in his left ear have existed before the incursion of the present for life. Indian tribes.

BIOGRAPHY.

His boyhood was spent quietly in his father's home. It was unmarked by a single incident. He was little given to the athletic sports of his companions, but eagerly devoured whatever of poetry and romance he could lay his hands on. His evenings were spent in the kitchen with his books, whither he retired to escape the society of the parlor. His first poems were written by the light of its blazing fire and read to the housemaid, who shared his singular study with him. Some specimens of these verses Mr. Wilson has rescued from oblivion and preserved in his pages. They are in character such as many a youthful poet has written, whose budding promise has never blossomed. They are valuable chiefly as curious illustrations of the young fledgeling's attempted flights. They certainly give little indication of his future.

THE letters of Fitz-Greene Halleck are those of a poet. His life was that of a clerk. We are not surprised, therefore, to find in his Life and Letters* the contributions of his pen far more important than those of his editor's. In truth, an experience more uneventful than that of his quiet life it would be difficult to imagine. He was born of Puritan parentage, July 8, 1790, in Guilford, Connecticut. The house that constituted so long his country home still stands, though converted now into a tavern. By his mother's side he traced back his pedigree to John Eliot, deservedly honored among all the most honored sons of New England. From his parents he inherited the simple tastes and the courtly manners which characterized the best portion of the old At twenty-one he went to New York city. Puritan stock. He mingled but little in society, There he spent the years of his manhood in the but society was never weary of entreating the fa- very unpoetic employment of keeping books, first vor of his presence. The melody of his numbers for Jacob Barker, afterward for John Jacob Astor. marked also his conversation, and the same wit The same scrupulous care which characterized which sparkled in "The Croakers" gave zest to his dress and manners rendered him invaluable all he said in common social intercourse. It was in this post. He was an excellent accountant rarely the case that any eminent visitor came to and penman. Very unlike a poet, he was alike New York that Fitz-Greene Halleck was not in- prudent and economical in his own expenditures vited to meet him. Among the friends who ac- and methodical in his habits and in his managecounted themselves honored by his acquaint-ment of his employers' business. In New York ance were Napoleon's brother Joseph, Lafay- he spent forty of the best years of his life-the ette, Miss Mitford, Miss Martineau, Mrs. Jamie-business hours in his counting-room, the evening son, Thackeray, the Keans, Macready, and the elder Booth. Though never a ladies' man, he always exercised a singular and irresistible fascination over the ladies. "A lady, who by birth and education had few if any superiors in the city, said: 'If I were on my way to church to be married, yes, even if I were walking up the aisle, and Halleck were to offer himself, I'd leave the man I promised to marry and take him!" Yet, not unlike others of a similar character, he lived and died uxmarried. The dignified and grace-pensation for the poems he contributed to the ful urbanity which not only characterized all that he did, but which was a part of his very nature, was doubtless very influential in securing for him so great a regard from the female sex. "In passing with the poet through the streets of his native town in August, 1867, a friend, observing that he touched his hat or removed it entirely, in his gracious and graceful manner, to many persons, some of whom gave but a slight nod in return to his polite salutation, remarked: 'Mr. Halleck, your courtesy seems to be thrown away on those boors.' 'Yes, perhaps 'tis so,' he replied, but yet that's no reason why I should be a boor.' His retiring disposition was perhaps intensified by a difficulty in hear

with his books, or in the society of congenial friends. Literature was a passion, but never a profession. He studied the Portuguese in order that he might read the "Lusiad" in the original. "I remember," says Mr. Bryant, "hearing him say that he could think of no more fortunate lot in life than the possession of a well-stored library with ample leisure for reading." But he seems never to have endeavored even to add to his income by his pen. He never received any com

Evening Post, National Advocate, and other journals and magazines during the twenty years which constituted the chief portion of his literary life. A proposition to become the editor of a magazine was at once rejected, and the announcement that he had accepted the offer was denied with some indignation. He seems to have been almost equally indifferent to fame. Up to the year 1839 his poems were published anonymously, with few, if any, exceptions. He sang as birds sing, not for a purpose, but because it was his nature to do so, and he could never bring himself to cage his muse and require her services at appointed times and for pecuniary reward. This quiet life was varied by a trip to Europe in 1822, and by several short journeys in his own country. At length the death of Astor, in 1848, JAMES GRANT WILSON, New York: D. Appleton and and a bequest from the millionaire of an annuity

The Life and Letters of Fitz-Greene Halleck. By Co. 1869.

of two hundred dollars per year, increased by the

It is possible that some of our readers may have wandered a few months ago into Schaus's pic-him to take the brush from the mouth, wet, and ture store on Broadway, and there observed a very beautiful and exquisitely delicate drawing entitled "The Rat-catcher and his Dogs." They could hardly fail to have been impressed by the fineness of the touch, even if they did not stop to read the very brief story of the artist who, deprived of the use of his hands, had executed this piece of workmanship with his mouth. That story Mr. Mills has expanded into a little book of sixty-four pages, which is printed and issued

Christian as a singular illustration of the methods which God sometimes employs to bring wandering ones back to Him, in calm faith on whom John Carter lived and died. "It is," says an eloquent writer, "a hymn to poverty, a hymn to affliction and calamity. Riches and health and prosperity shut the doors of heaven and blind us to our best selves." The cross often opens the closed door-is the voice of the Master saying, Receive thy sight.

RELIGIOUS.

and practically applying it. And it is a good sign that many of the more popular divines in America are succeeding in redeeming the public reading of Scripture from a listless formality, and clothing it with a new life, by brief and pertinent comments. Dr. Lillie's Lectures on the Epistles of Peter* are very fair, though not very remarkable, specimens of Biblical exposition. They are not sufficiently condensed to serve the scholar as a commentary, and not sufficiently practical to serve the people as devotional reading. But they are nevertheless useful both for the scholar and the general reader, and will be cordially welcomed by those who desire to see the sermon become once more, occasionally if not regularly, what it was in the days of Knox, of Luther, of Augustine, of the Apostles, and of Christ himself—an exposition of the Word of God.

miah, where we are told that at the time of the restoration Ezra the Scribe, accompanied by assistants, and occupying a pulpit erected for the purpose, "read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading." In Scotland this method of preaching still prevails. The people bring their Bibles, and follow the preacher as he reads and expounds. In our conception this exposition is by far the most attractive and profitable part of Mr. Spurgeon's service, who sucLITERARY partnerships are rarely very success-ceeds in a wonderful measure in giving the sense ful ventures. The book which is written by two minds lacks the unity of thought and feeling which is demanded for the highest measure of success. Conybeare and Howson's Life and Epistles of St. Paul* is an exception to this rule. It has long been regarded, and rightly, by all Biblical students, as the authority on the subject of which it treats. It is a thesaurus of information on geographical and archæological subjects connected with that portion of the New Testament which it undertakes to illustrate. * For an understanding, not of particular passages, but of the general scope and teaching of him who, next to the divine founder of Christianity, has done more than any one to mould the religious thought of the world, it is better than any commentary, and is the student's necessary companion to the more strictly exegetical works of Alford, Wordsworth, Ellicott, and Lange. The particular method of its composition may have tended to give it its success. The Epistles were translated by Mr. Conybeare. In what is almost a paraphrase he succeeds in clearing away many of those obscurities of style and expression which, in the more literal rendering of the English version, make the writings of the great Apostle the most difficult portion of the New Testament to understand. Mr. Howson, adding the results of travel in the East to the results of a broad and generous scholarship, contributes a large proportion of the life of the Apostle and of the archæological and geographical information which illuminates it. But the work has heretofore been confined to the libraries of scholars. Its notes assumed that the reader was familiar with the Greek Testament, and they frequently required for their comprehension a knowledge of the German. At the same time the size and price prevented it from having a popular sale. The publishers have therefore rendered a good service to the cause of Biblical knowledge in presenting to the American public this People's Edition, prepared by Mr. Howson himself, in which the notes are rendered in English, and the very concise foot-notes which accompany the new translation of the Epistles are based on the English, not on the Greek text. The whole is printed in a single compact volume, in good clear type, and is very respectably illustrated. The text is unaltered, with the exception of some slight verbal changes, and the reader has really, though in a cheaper and more comprehensible form, all that the original and more costly edition afforded him.

THE first account of preaching of which we have any history is given in the Book of Nehe

• The Life and Epistles of St. Paul. By Rev. W. J. CONYBEARE, M.A., and Rev. J. S. HowsoN, D.D. With a Preliminary Dissertation by Rev. LEONARD BACON, D.D. Hartford, Connecticut: S. S. Scranton and Co.

PROFESSOR COWLES's Commentary on Isaiah (D. Appleton and Co.), following one on the Minor Prophets by the same author, is less scholastic than Dr. Henderson's work on the same book, and is less voluminous than that of Dr. Barnes. Designed, as we are told, for both pastors and people, we think it will have its largest circulation among the latter, and that, though pastors may welcome it as an addition to their libraries, it will not take the place of their more erudite works upon the original text.

PRESIDENT DODGE's Evidences of Christianity (Gould and Lincoln) is a useful and compact statement of those evidences which are generally accepted and taught in the schools. Indeed, he expressly avows it to be his aim "to present Christianity as accepted by the representatives of the Protestant faith." As an original contribution to the religious thought of the day it can not rank with the works of Dr. M'Cosh or Dr. Bushnell's "Nature and the Supernatural." As a reply to critical and skeptical objections it does not compare with Dr. Barnes's "Evidences of Christianity." As a compend of the evidences as accepted by the representatives of the Protestant faith" it is superior to either.

SCIENCE.

THE title-page of Ecce Cœlumt is the poorest page in the book. We took it up expecting to find one of the score of imitations which "Ecce Homo" has produced. We were agreeably disappointed to find that the author had imitated

By the Rev. JOHN LILLIE, D.D. With an Introduction * Lectures on the First and Second Epistles of Peter.

by PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D. New York: Charles Scribner and Co. 1869.

+ Ecce Cœlum, or Parish Astronomy. In Six Lectures. By a Connecticut Pastor. Boston: Nichols and Noyes. 1869.