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permitted to doubt whether any other man could have borne it with the same imperturbable resolution, and whether he would have at last achieved for his journal and himself that position which they now hold. Suffice it, that any one who reads this volume attentively, from its beginning to its end, as we have done, can not doubt but that many of Mr. Bennett's faults as a journalist have been superinduced by the circumstances in which he has been placed, while his virtues are specifically his own. That we may not be misunderstood in speaking of his virtues, we will mention to what we more specifically allude. Firstly, we would urge his unblemished private character-which has had far more to do with his public success than many of laxer moral notions would be disposed to admit; secondly, we would call attention to his singular and most pertinacious industry-he is essentially a man who can not be idle; and lastly, we would allude to the conscientious way in which he has invariably supported his adopted country's line of policy, in the teeth of such epithets as "renegade Scotsman," "turncoat," and other marvellously pleasant names, which were at one time profusely and with no niggard hand heaped upon him.

He has now over-ridden the whole of this opposition, and we confess ourselves-opposed to his political course as we can not avoid being-obliged to accord him a singularly large amount of talent and energy. Without these, he must have failed. But in addition to this, we would direct the attention of our readers to one principle in Mr. Bennett's career as a journalist, which demands our special attention. He has never afforded his enemies, whatever other errors he may have committed, the slightest pretext for attacking him as an enemy to the Rights of the States. He has never lent himself, his pen, or his paper in the slightest degree to those fanatics who would tear the Union asunder, under the pretext of abolishing slavery-who, to efface an imaginary blemish upon our institutions, would render that aggregate power which God has reared among the nations of the earth, rent and discordant fragments. This alone constitutes, in our opinion, a valuable element in estimating his positive nationality. The "renegade Scotsman" has done more to conserve our Union intact by this damning schism amongst us, than half of our native editors; and as such, we confess that however he may have formerly been denounced by personal opponents, we have ever felt inclined to extend our hand to him, and to confess that whatever errors he may have made, we must acknowledge him, in this one respect, more

an American than scores of those who are born and bred upon our own soil.

Whoever the gentleman may be whose pen has given us the leading events in the life of this man-so remarkable for possessing in the highest degree many of those features which have marked some of our greatest men-we can only say that he has performed his labor with great ability. We see that the Home Journal asserts it to be Isaac C. Pray, who was formerly attached to the Herald. If so, we can only say that this circumstance is an additional compliment to Mr. Bennett, as we seem to recollect that Mr. Pray left that journal in consequence of a personal disagreement with him. And we would implore the fates to place our Memoirs when drawn up, (as they infallibly will be at some future day,) in the hands of some such just and discriminating Christian.

Seriously, if it be Mr. Pray, he has produced the most satisfactory and able biography that we have come across for many years. It must have been a labor which has long occupied him, and deserves a cordial recognition of its value from Mr. Bennett, who can, at present, scarcely be aware even if he has seen the book-of the value which it must, ultimately, be to his reputation.

We here extract a few paragraphs which may be amusing from their reference to a period which we all of us remember. They may also serve to show that the writer has not the slightest respect for that squeamishness of taste which we were wont to call modesty, and which the Herald had so definitely set its face against.

"There was no longer any reason why latitude of expression should be indulged in. The affected prudery of society had been cured of its ridiculous vanities—and a more frank and genuine tolerance of expression and opinion had taken the place of a mawkish refinement that tittered before honest English plainness in every drawing room. The tortures to which words were put were often quite amusing. Limb was used for leg, and the Herald talked of the branches of public dancers, when it satirized the affectations of society. Linen became the synonym for shirts, and inexpressibles for pantaloons. Old-fashioned people scarcely knew how to open their mouths without offending the affected taste of the times.

"Mock-modesty giggled and simpered everywhere, and frankness of expression and honesty of purpose were jostled from the walk by a sentimentality sickening in itself, depraving the mind of its victim, and coaxing the unwary within the giddy whirl of licentiousness and vice. Mr. Bennett had interpreted his duty in the demands of the age, and had acted in accordance with

his determination to reprove and reform it-running, like many a reformer, into the opposite extreme. The horrible vulgarity which insulted the refinement of his virtuous contemporaries, and shocked the conventional morality of the time, may be found lurking in the following curt paragraph from the Herald:

"Petticoats-petticoats-petticoats-petticoats-there-you fastidious fools-vent your mawkishness on that!'"

Nothing could well be more fortunate than the last expression-"mawkishness." Were it for nothing else, we would testify that the Herald has fulfilled one of its duties to society. It called one vice--for it was a vice-by its right name, and did so openly and unblushingly. We pardon many of his and its numerous political backslidings, simply and solely upon this

account.

Another quotation we make from this valuable and interesting volume, for the purpose of giving a good example of the style in which it has been written:

"Well-Mr. Bennett walked along. The grass and the white clover sent forth an odor, 'like wild honey,' sweet and delicious. He looked down upon the Isla below him. There was the very place wherein he used to bathe at evening, in summer. There was the Loggie Pot,a small still cove of the Isla, used formerly by the flax-dressers to bleach their stuffs-and here the intack, the head of the mill-dam, a wall or flume conducting the stream to the mill. The rushing waters spoke with a familiar murmur to him—and near by was the trouting ground, and the very spot where he once fought for an hour or more, with a school-fellow, to settle a point of honor. The little "burn of Kimmantie" at the left, issued from a ravine filled with young trees, and bubbled past to meet the embraces of the Isla. The sun shone mildly through a haze of thin, white, silvery clouds. The calm, quiet, peaceful air of the hills, fields, towns, houses, and every thing around, seemed to make a very Sabbath.

"As he passed along town, he met a little girl.

the foot of the blooming brae,' leading to the old Pointing to the houses, and pleased to hear something of the dialect of his boyhood, he inquired: 'What is the name of that place?'

"The ould toon, sir!'

"The reply and the accent delighted him, and as he looked at her again,

smiling with the recollection of the old time, he asked:

"What's the matter with your foot, my girl?'

"I've a saer tae."

"Here's something to heal it."

"And so saying, he passed a small coin into the hand of the girl, who,

after looking at him with the utmost astonishment, bounded out of his sight with the vitality of a young antelope.

"Mr. Bennett went on. The pilgrim was near the shrine. When he had left this spot years ago, Duff House, or the house of the Laird of Braco, built on an extensive lawn, around which the Deveron glided beautifully, was adorned externally with shrubberies and plantations of forest trees, and the bridge of seven arches, at the commencement of this century, was erected by the government, just at the foot of the garden belonging to this elegant seat of luxury and refinement. The old house of Glengarry and Earn Park were then there, and he had clambered over the ruins of the dismantled edifice a thousand times, and threaded through the woods of the park so often as to know every tree. There he had listened to all the melody of the grove. A rich green field was the only record of their former existence, when the simple peasantry of those regions lived in Highland frugality and industry, under the eye of the 'gudeman' of the noble mansion, of which the hundreds of windows and massive walls were constructed after a beautiful design to be seen in a volume known as Woolf's 'Vitruvius.'

"Mr. Bennett ascended the rising ground in search of a relative. He was at the garden-gate. He went into the house without knocking, and stood before his aunt. She looked at him for a few moments, but recognized not a face she had seen before. He smiled-she knew him at once! "God bless me! Na, weel then! Eh! now! Weel, I never would have kent you-God bless me! You're so much altered-but for your laugh

I would not have known you.'

"He sat down. He could not reply, or speak for some time.

"I kent you as soon as you laughed,' said she, almost crying for joy. And Mr. Bennett well may have thought that there is 'something in the smile of the human face that never changes.' He did not know her, either, when he first looked at her; her cheeks were fuller and more ruddy, and she was stouter than when he saw her in his boyhood. When she smiled, however, he knew it was his aunt.

"How stout you have got, aunty; but where's my mother? How is her health? How are the two girls-my sisters? How is uncle?'

"Before any replies could be given, his mother, followed by his two sisters, came in from their own residence close by, for they had discovered his coming. It had been a long separation till then. The vicissitudes of life had been many-but there was an age of joy in that moment. The mother seized him tenderly by both hands, looked into his face, kissed him, and fell upon his neck, weeping like a child. There was an arm-chair on the floor.

"Bless me, mother," said he, 'how old you do look! How is your health? Sit down-sit down! How old you do look!'

"Twenty-three years,' said she, 'since I saw you-and in that time your father and brother have died-is enough to make me look old.'

"The sound of a mother's voice no man can forget, but the reference to his brother almost overwhelmed him. If he ever loved aught in the shape of man, it was his brother Cosmo. When they were at school together, they made their very studies their amusements, and would play over their tasks. His brother was educated for the Catholic Church, but by following the rules of that establishment, he was destroyed in the very prime of life. At twenty years of age, he was an excellent Hebrew, Greek, and Latin scholar. As a student he was very proficient. As a poet, as a philosopher, as a genius full of natural wit, brilliancy, and profound learning, he was admirable. Mr. Bennett had hoped to have him as an associate-editor in bringing about the great reform and regeneration that began with the close of the last war with England. He received his death-blow in the College of Angelites, where he was educated."

It will scarcely be necessary to call attention to the names, which be met with within this volume. They range over may all classes, from Jefferson and Jackson to Colt and Maria Monk, from Malibran and Forrest to Fernando Wood and Jim Grant, (the barber who shaved Mr. Bennett some ten years. since,) from Zachary Taylor to Lopez, and from James K. Polk and Daniel O'Connell to Frances Wright and Taglioni. These alone may serve to give our readers some idea of the diversity and range of subject forced upon the author. It is a volume which no journalist should be without, as a mere work for reference. It is at the same time a work which every student of contemporary history will need to read; while it is one which a lady may take up, without feeling that her time has been thrown away upon the study of a bundle of dried facts strung together for the mere utility-reader. In conclusion we will call attention to the portrait, which is one of the most ably executed that we have recently met with. The artist is C. G. Rosenberg, who has drawn it in the form of a medal, by this means, avoiding that cast in the eye, which, however expressive, may scarcely be considered as a decided addition to the personal comeliness of James Gordon Bennett.

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