CHARLES G. LELAND. [Born, 1824.] THE author of "Meister KARL's Sketch Book" was born in Philadelphia on the fifteenth of August, 1824. He is descended, according to the "Genæological Register," from the same family as the English antiquary, JOHN LELAND, who lived in the time of the eighth HENRY, and his first American ancestor was HENRY LELAND, who died in Sherburne, Massachusetts, in 1580. He was graduated at Princeton College, in 1846, and soon after went to Europe, and studied some time at the universities of Heidelberg, Munich, and Paris, devoting special attention to modern languages, æsthetics, history, and philosophy, under GERVINUS, THIERSCH, SCHLOSSER, and other teachers. Mr. LELAND in 1845 became a contributor to the "Knickerbocker" magazine, in which he has since published a great number of articles; and he has written much for other periodicals, chiefly on subjects of foreign literature and art. His "Sketch Book of Me Meister KARL," first given to the public through the pages of the "Knickerbocker," is an extraordinary production, full of natural sentinent, wit, amiable humor, incidents of foreign travel, description, moralizing, original poetry, odd extracts, and curious learning, all combined so as to display effectively the author's information, vivacity, and independence, and to illustrate the life of a student of the most catholic temper and ambition, who thinks it worth his while occasionally to indulge in studies from nature as well as from And I said, "If they saw me, 't would cool their "If you think,' said the monk, 'that I have done you any service, give me leave to found an abbey after my own fancy. The notion pleased GARGANTUA very well, who thereupon offered him all the country of Thelemé."-RABELAIS, Book I. c. lvii. books, and enjoys a life of action quite as well as 46 His Poetry and mystery of Dreams" is the only work in English in which are collected the displays of feeling and opinion that the ingenious and learned in various ages have made respecting the activity of the mind during sleep. In its preparation he carefully examined the writings of ARTEMIDORUS, ASTRAMPSYCHIUS, NICEPHORUS of Constantinople, and ACHMET, the Arabian, as well as the authors of modern Europe who have treated systematically or incidentally of oneirology or the related mental phenomena. His last book, "Pictures of Travel," translated from the German of HENRY HEINE, is an admirable rendering of that great wit's "Reisebilder," in which the spirit of the original is given with a point and elegance rarely equalled in English versions of German poetry, while the whole is singularly literal and exact. Mr. LELAND's poems are for the most part in a peculiar vein of satirical humor. He has an invincible d' alike of the sickly extravagances of small sentimentalists, and the absurd assumptions of small philanthropists. He is not altogether incredulous of progress, but does not look for it from that boastful independence, characterizing the new generation, which rejects the authority and derides the wisdom of the past. He is of that healthy in ́ tellectual constitution which promises in every department the best fruits to his industry. And oh! but they all were beautiful, And their words were sweet as the wind harp's tone I had not deemed that a band like this And they spoke of brave and beautiful things, And I thought, "Perhaps they would like me well, Who sat in the light-bright hall, She sat alone by an empty chair, The queen of the feast was she, 596 And aloud she spoke, "We have waited long As he sits on the steps without; I have sung to him long in silent dreams, They opened the door, yet I shrunk with shame, But they haled me out with a joyous shout, And merrily led me in And gave me a place by my bright-haired love, And I said to myself, "By the stars above. Farewell to ye, care, and pain! I live in a land where good fellows abound, They may long for a "happier life" that will,- A DREAM OF LOVE. I DREAMED I lay beside the dark blue Rhine, And mine the cares and pain which once he felt. Dim, cloudy centuries had rolled away, E'en to that minstrel age-the olden time, When ROLAND's lady bid him woo no more, And he, aweary, sought the castern clime. Methought that I, like him, had wandered long, In those strange lands of which old legends tell; Then home I turned to my own glancing Rhine, And found my lady in a convent cell; And I, like him, had watched through weary years, And dwelt unseen hard by her convent's bound, In that old tower, which yet stands pitying The cloister-isle, enclosed by water round. I long had watched-for in the early morn, To ope her lattice, came that lady oft; And earnestly I gazed, yet naught I saw, [soft. Save one small hand and arm, white, fair, and And when, at eve, the long, dark shadows fell O'er rock and valley, vineyard, town, and tower, Again she came-again that small white hand Would close her lattice for the vesper hour. I lingered still, e'en when the silent night Had cast its sable mantle o'er the shrine, To see her lonely taper's softened light [fall, Gleam, far reflected, o'er the quiet Rhine; But most I loved to see her form, at times, Obscure those beams- for then her shade would And I beheld it, evenly portrayed— A living profile, on that window small. And thus I lived in love-though not in hopeAnd thus I watched that maiden many a year, When, lo! I saw, one morn, a funeral trainAlas! they bore my lady to her bier! And she was dead-yet grieved I not therefore, For now in Heaven she knew the love I felt, Death could not kill affection, nor destroy The holy peace wherein I long had dwelt. Oh, gentle lady! this was but a dream! And in a dream I bore all this for thee. If thus in sleep love's pangs assail my soul, Think, lady, what my waking hours must be MANES. THERE's a time to be jolly, a time to repent, THE THREE FRIENDS. I HAVE three friends, three glorious friends, three dearer could not be; And every night, when midnight tolls, they meet to laugh with me. The first was shot by Carlist thieves, three years ago, in Spain; The second drowned, near Alicante, and I alive remain. I love to see their thin white forms come stealing through the night, And grieve to see them fade away in the early morning light. The first with gnomes in the Under-land is leading a lordly life, The second has married a mermaiden, a beautiful water-wife. And since I have friends in the earth and sea-with |