JOHN SHAW. [Born, 1778. Died, 1809.] JOHN SHAW was born in Annapolis, Maryland, | Selkirk, then about to establish his colony on the on the fourth of May, 1778; graduated at St. John's north side of Lake St. Clair; in 1805 settled in his College, in that city, in 1796; after studying medi-native town as a physician; in 1807 was married, cine two years, with a private teacher, entered the medical school connected with the University of Pennsylvania, in 1798; in the same year suddenly sailed for Algiers, as surgeon of several vessels built in this country for the Algerine government; became secretary to General Eaton, our consul at Tunis; returned to Annapolis in 1800; the next year went to Edinburgh for the completion of his professional education; in 1803 left Scotland with Lord and removed to Baltimore, and was busy with efforts to found a medical college there, when his health failed, and died, on a voyage to the Bahama Islands, on the tenth of January, 1809. He had been a writer for "The Port Folio," and other periodicals, and after his death a collection of his poems was published in Baltimore. They have not generally much merit, but among them is a beautiful song,beginning, "Who has robbed the ocean cave?" which will live. WHO HAS ROBBED THE OCEAN WHO has robbed the ocean cave, On thy breath their fragrance borne: Guard thy bosom from the day, But one charm remains behind, Which mute earth could ne'er impart; Nor in ocean wilt thou find, Nor in the circling air, a heart: Fairest, wouldst thou perfect be, THE LAD FROM TUCKAHOE. On the lad from Tuckahoe, That all the truth may know, He alighted at the door, Ask'd what made me trifle so, When he comes from Tuckahoe. THE FALSE MAIDEN. OH, wert thou hail'd the sole queen Of all that greets the day-star's view, Yet I would never love thee- And curling falls thy glossy hair, As when I first did love thee, For ah! thy flinty cold heart Ill suits thy beauty's treacherous glow, Ah, wo to him who loves thee!- Each sleepless night sad witness bears, All told how much I loved thee, But broken is the fond spell: My fate no more depends on thee; For none can ever love thee As dearly as I loved thee, And I shall court thy chains no more, No! no! I will not love thee! CLEMENT C. MOORE. 66 [Born 1779. Died 1863.] CLEMENT C. MOORE, LL. D., a son of the Right Reverend BENJAMIN MOORE, Bishop of the Pro testant Episcopal Church in New York, was born at Newtown, on Long Island, about the year 1778, and graduated bachelor of arts at Columbia College in 1799. His early addiction to elegant literature was illustrated in various poetical and prose contributions to the "Port Folio" and the New York "Evening Post;" and his abilities as a critic were shown in a pungent reviewal of contempoJary American poetry, especially of Mr. JOSEPH STORY'S "Powers of Solitude," in a letter prefixed to his friend JOHN DUER'S « New Translation of the Third Satire of JUVENAL, with Miscellaneous Poems, Original and Translated," which appeared in 1806. "Anna Matilda," and "Della Crusca," were still the fashionable models of our sentimentalists, and Mr. STORY followed Mrs. MORTON, ROBERT TREAT PAINE, WILLIAM LADD, and others of that school, who, to use Mr. MOORE's language, if they could procure from the wardrobe of poesy a sufficient supply of dazzling ornaments wherewith to deck their intellectual offspring, were utterly regardless whether the body of sense which these decorations were designed to render attractive were worthy of attention, or mean and distorted and in danger of being overwhelmed by the profusion of its ornaments.' 66 Devoting his attention to biblical learning, Mr. * ROBERT MERRY, after being graduated master of arts at With Spring's rich flowers shall dress thy sacred grave, | MOORE in 1809 published in two volumes the first American "Lexicon of the Hebrew Language," and he was afterwards many years professor of Hebrew and Greek in the General Theological Seminary, of which he was one of the founders and principal benefactors. His only or most im portant publications in later years have been a volume of "Poems," in 1844, and "George Castriot, surnamed Scanderbeg, King of Albania," an historical biography, in 1852. In some touching lines to Mr. SOUTHEY, written in 1832, Dr. MOORE reveals a portion of his private history, which proves that the happiest condition is not exempt from the common ills; but his life appears to have been nearly all passed very quietly, in the cultivation of learning, and in intercourse with a few congenial friends. In his old age, sending a bunch of flowers to the late Mr PHILIP HONE, he wrote to him: "These new-cull'd blossoms which I send, Nor how they all should be combined, The true emotions of my mind. If mingled in proportions right, These colours that so various gleam, With friendship's pure and tranquil beam." In his answer, Mr. HONE says: "Filled as thou art with attic fire, And skilled in classic lore divine, And welcome, shall thy steps attend; More dear to me than all, as friend." A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS. "T WAS the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; "Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen ! On! Comet, on! Cupid, on! Donder and Blitzen- * TO MY CHILDREN, AFTER HAVING MY PORTRAIT TAKEN FOR THEM. THIS semblance of your parent's time-worn face Some floating fragment from oblivion's wave: When we have mouldered in the silent tomb. But no! it is not we who moulder there, We, of essential light that ever burns; We take our way through untried fields of air, When to the earth this earth-born frame re. turns. And 't is the glory of the master's art Some radiance of this inward light to find, Some touch that to his canvas may impart A breath, a sparkle of the immortal mind. Alas! the pencil's noblest power can show But some faint shadow of a transient thought, Some wakened feeling's momentary glow, Some swift impression in its passage caught. Oh that the artist's pencil could portray A father's inward bosom to your eyes, What hopes, and fears, and doubts perplex his way, What aspirations for your welfare rise. Then might this unsubstantial image prove When I am gone, a guardian of your youth, A friend forever urging you to move In paths of honour, holiness, and truth. Let fond imagination's power supply The void that baffles all the painter's art; And when those mimic features meet your eye, Then fancy that they speak a parent's heart. Think that you still can trace within those eyes, The searching glance that every fault espies, The kindling of affection's fervid beam, The fond anticipation's pleasing dream. Fancy those lips still utter sounds of praise, Or kind reproof that checks each wayward will The warning voice, or precepts that may raise Your thoughts above this treacherous world of ill. And thus shall art attain her loftiest power; But Virtue's handmaid, and Religion's friend JAMES KIRKE PAULDING. [Born 1779. Died 1860.] Mr. PAULDING is known by his num rous novels and other prose writings, much better han by his poetry; yet his early contributions to our poetical literature, if they do not bear witness that he possesses, in an eminent degree, "the vision and the faculty divine," are creditable for their patriotic spirit and moral purity. He was born in the town of Pawling,-the original mode of spelling his name,-in Duchess county, New York, on the 22d of August, 1779, and is descended from an old and honourable family, of Dutch extraction. His earliest literary productions were the papers entitled "Salmagundi," the first series of which, in two volumes, were written in conjunction with WASHINGTON IRVING, in 1807. These were succeeded, in the next thirty years, by the following works, in the order in which they are named: John Bull and Brother Jonathan, in one volume; The Lay of a Scotch Fiddle, a satirical poem, in one volume; The United States and England, in one volume; Second Series of Salmagundi, in two ODE TO JAMESTOWN. OLD cradle of an infant world, In which a nestling empire lay, Struggling a while, ere she unfurl'd Her gallant wing and soar'd away; All hail! thou birth-place of the glowing west, Thou seem'st the towering eagle's ruin'd nest! What solemn recollections throng, What touching visions rise, As, wandering these old stones among, And see the shadows of the dead flit round, The wonders of an age combined, In one short moment memory supplies I hear the angry ocean rave, I see the lonely little barque As o'er the drowned earth 't was hurl'd, I see a train of exiles stand, Amid the desert, desolate, The fathers of my native land, The daring pioneers of fate, Who braved the perils of the sea and earth, volumes; Letters from the South, in two volumes The Backwoodsman, a poem, in one volume; Koningsmarke, or Old Times in the New World, a novel, in two volumes; John Bull in America, in one volume; Merry Tales of the Wise Men of Gotham, in one volume; The Traveller's Guide, or New Pilgrim's Progress, in one volume; The Dutchman's Fireside, in two volumes; Westward Ho! in two volumes; Slavery in the United States, in one volume; Life of Washington, in two volumes; The Book of St. Nicholas, in one volume; and Tales, Fables, and Allegories, originally published in various periodicals, in three volumes. Beside these, and some less pretensive works, he has written much in the gazettes on political and other questions agitated in his time. Mr. PAULDING has held various honourable offices in his native state; and in the summer of 1838, he was appointed, by President VAN BUREN, Secretary of the Navy. He continued to be a member of the cabinet until the close of Mr. VAN BUREN's administration, in 1841. I see the sovereign Indian range His woodland empire, free as air; I see the gloomy forest change, And, where the red man chased the bounding deer, I see the haughty warrior gaze As the pale faces sweat to raise While he, the monarch of the boundless wood, A moment, and the pageant's gone; The pale-faced strangers stand alone And the proud wood-king, who their arts disdain'd, The forest reels beneath the stroke Of sturdy woodman's axe; The earth receives the white man's yoke, Of fruits, and flowers, and golden harvest fields, Then growing hamlets rear their heads, And gathering crowds expand, Far as my fancy's vision spreads, O'er many a boundless land, Till what was once a world of savage strife. Teems with the richest gifts of social life. Empire to empire swift succeeds, Each happy, great, and free; One empires still another breeds, A giant progeny, Destined their daring race to run, Then, as I turn my thoughts to trace And find it, these rude stones among. Their names have been forgotten long; The stone, but not a word, remains; Yet this sublime obscurity, to me As bright a crown as e'er was worn, No one that inspiration drinks; No one that loves his native land; No one that reasons, feels, or thinks, Can mid these lonely ruins stand, Without a moisten'd eye, a grateful tear Of reverent gratitude to those that moulder here. The mighty shade now hovers round Of HIM whose strange, yet bright career, In letters that no time shall sere; And she! the glorious Indian maid, The angel of the woodland shade, The miracle of God's own hand, Who join'd man's heart to woman's softest grace, And thrice redeem'd the scourges of her race Sister of charity and love, Whose life-blood was soft Pity's tide, Flower of the forest, nature's pride, I care not who my themes may mock, I envy not the brute who here can stand, And if the recreant crawl her earth, Or, in New England claim his birth, He is a bastard, if he dare to mock Old Jamestown's shrine, or Plymouth's famous rock PASSAGE DOWN THE OHIO.* As down Ohio's ever ebbing tide, Sent forth blithe labour's homely, rustic song; "T was evening now: the hour of toil was o'er, EVENING. "T WAS sunset's hallow'd time-and such an eve Might almost tempt an angel heaven to leave. Never did brighter glories greet the eye, Low in the warm and ruddy western sky: Nor the light clouds at summer eve unfold More varied tints of purple, red, and gold. Some in the pure, translucent, liquid breast Of crystal lake, fast anchor'd seem'd to rest, Like golden islets scatter'd far and wide, By elfin skill in fancy's fabled tide, Where, as wild eastern legends idly feign, Fairy, or genii, hold despotic reign. This, and the two following extracts, are from the Backwoodsman." |