hospitable sun, to-morrow, not before,—they must sit in wet garments until then.

In all climates spring is beautiful. In the south it is intoxicating, and sets a poet beside himself. The birds begin to sing;-they utter a few rapturous notes, and then wait for an answer in the silent woods. Those green-coated musicians, the frogs, make holiday in the neighbouring marshes. They, too, belong to the orchestra of nature; whose vast theatre is again opened, though the doors have been so long bolted with icicles, and the scenery hung with snow and frost, like cobwebs. This is the prelude, which announces the rising of the broad green curtain. Already the grass shoots forth. The waters leap with thrilling pulse through the veins of the earth; the sap through the veins of the plants and trees; and the blood through the veins of man. What a thrill of delight in spring-time! What a joy in being and moving! Men are at work in gardens; and in the air there is an odour of the fresh earth. The leaf-buds begin to swell and blush. The white blossoms of the cherry hang upon the boughs like snow-flakes, and ere long our next-door neighbours will be completely hidden from us by the dense green foliage. The May flowers open their soft blue eyes. Children are let loose in the fields and gardens. They hold butter-cups under each others' chins, to see if they love butter. And the little girls adorn themselves with chains and curls of dandelions; pull out the yellow leaves to see if the schoolboy loves them, and blow the down from the leafless stalk, to find out if their mothers want them at home.

And at night so cloudless and so still! Not a voice of living thing,-not a whisper of leaf or waving bough,-not a breath of wind,-not a sound upon the earth nor in the air! And overhead bends the blue sky, dewy and soft, and radiant with innumerable stars, like the inverted bell of some blue flower, sprinkled with golden dust, and breathing fragrance. Or if the heavens are overcast, it is no wild storm of wind and rain; but clouds that melt and fall in showers. One does not wish to sleep; but lies awake to hear the pleasant sound of the dropping rain.

SUMMER-TIME.

FROM THE SAME.

THEY were right,-those old German minnesingers, to sing the pleasant summer-time!

What

a time it is! How June stands illuminated in the calendar! The windows are all wide open; only the Venetian blinds closed. Here and there a long streak of sunshine streams in through a crevice. We hear the low sound of the wind among the trees; and, as it swells and freshens, the distant doors clap to, with a sudden sound. The trees are heavy with leaves; and the gardens full of blossoms, red and white. The whole atmosphere is laden with perfume and sunshine. The birds sing. The cock struts about, and crows loftily. Insects chirp in the grass. Yellow butter-cups stud the green carpet like golden buttons, and

The

the red blossoms of the clover like rubies. elm-trees reach their long, pendulous branches almost to the ground. White clouds sail aloft; and vapours fret the blue sky with silver threads. The white village gleams afar against the dark hills. Through the meadow winds the river,careless, indolent. It seems to love the country, and is in no haste to reach the sea. The bee only is at work,-the hot and angry bee. All things else are at play; he never plays, and is vexed that any one should.

People drive out from town to breathe, and to be happy. Most of them have flowers in their hands; bunches of apple-blossoms, and still oftener lilacs. Ye denizens of the crowded city, how pleasant to you is the change from the sultry streets to the open fields, fragrant with clover-blossoms! how pleasant the fresh breezy country air, dashed with brine from the meadows! how pleasant, above all, the flowers, the manifold beautiful flowers!

It is no longer day. Through the trees rises the red moon, and the stars are scarcely seen. In the vast shadow of night, the coolness and the dews descend. I sit at the open window to enjoy them; and hear only the voice of the summer wind. Like black hulks, the shadows of the great trees ride at anchor on the billowy sea of grass. I cannot see the red and blue flowers, but I know that they are there. Far away in the meadow gleams the silver Charles. The tramp of horses' hoofs sounds from the wooden bridge. Then all is still, save the continuous wind of the summer night. Sometimes I know not if it be the wind or the sound of the neighbouring sea. The village clock strikes; and I feel that I am not alone.

How different is it in the city! It is late, and the crowd is gone. You step out upon the balcony, and lie in the very bosom of the cool, dewy night, as if you folded her garments about you. The whole starry heaven is spread out overhead. Beneath lies the public walk with trees, like a fathomless, black gulf, into whose silent darkness the spirit plunges and floats away, with some beloved spirit clasped in its embrace. The lamps are still burning up and down the long street. People go by, with grotesque shadows, now foreshortened and now lengthening away into the darkness and vanishing, while a new one springs up behind the walker, and seems to pass him on the sidewalk. The iron gates of the park shut with a jangling clang. There are footsteps, and loud voices, tumult,-a drunken brawl,-an alarm of fire; then silence again. And now at length the city is asleep, and we can see the night. The belated moon looks over the roofs, and finds no one to welcome her. The moonlight is broken. It lies here and there in the squares, and the opening of streets,-angular, like blocks of white marble.

TELL me, my soul, why art thou restless? Why dost thou look forward to the future with such strong desire? The present is thine,—and the past; and the future shall be!

LIVES OF SCHOLARS.

FROM THE SAME.

WHAT a strange picture a university presents to the imagination. The lives of scholars in their cloistered stillness;-literary men of retired habits, and professors who study sixteen hours a day, and never see the world but on a Sunday. Nature has, no doubt, for some wise purpose, placed in their hearts this love of literary labour and seclusion. Otherwise, who would feed the undying lamp of thought? But for such men as these, a blast of wind through the chinks and crannies of this old world, or the flapping of a conqueror's banner, would blow it out for ever. The light of the soul is easily extinguished. And whenever I reflect upon these things I become aware of the great importance, in a nation's history, of the individual fame of scholars and literary men. I fear, that it is far greater than the world is willing to acknowledge; or, perhaps, I should say, than the world has thought of acknowledging. Blot out from England's history the names of Chaucer, Shakspeare, Spenser, and Milton only, and how much of her glory would you blot out with them! Take from Italy such names as Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Michel Angelo, and Raphael, and how much would still be wanting to the completeness of her glory! How would the history of Spain look if the leaves were torn out, on which are written the names of Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Calderon! What would be the fame of Portugal, without her Camoens; of France, without her Racine, and Rabelais, and Voltaire; or Germany, without her Martin Luther, her Goethe, and Schiller!-Nay, what were the nations of old, without their philosophers, poets, and historians! Tell me, do not these men in all ages and in all places, emblazon with bright colours the armorial bearings of their country? Yes, and far more than this; for in all ages and all places they give humanity assurance of its greatness; and say, Call not this time or people wholly barbarous; for thus much, even then and there, could the human mind achieve! But the boisterous world has hardly thought of acknowledging all this. Therein it has shown itself somewhat ungrateful. Else, whence the great reproach, the general scorn, the loud derision, with which, to take a familiar example, the monks of the middle ages are regarded. That they slept their lives away is most untrue. For in an age when books were few,-so few, so precious, that they were often chained to their oaken shelves with iron chains, like galley-slaves to their benches, these men, with their laborious hands, copied upon parchment all the lore and wisdom of the past, and transmitted it to us. Perhaps it is not too much to say, that, but for these monks, not one line of the classics would have reached our day. Surely, then, we can pardon something to those superstitious ages, perhaps even the mysticism of the scholastic philosophy, since, after all, we can find no harm in it, only the mistaking of the possible for the real, and the high aspirings of the human mind

after a long-sought and unknown somewhat. I think the name of Martin Luther, the monk of Wittemberg, alone sufficient to redeem all monkhood from the reproach of laziness! If this will not, perhaps the vast folios of Thomas Aquinas will; or the countless manuscripts, still treasured in old libraries, whose yellow and wrinkled pages remind one of the hands that wrote them, and the faces that once bent over them.

WHERE SHOULD THE SCHOLAR LIVE?

FROM THE SAME.

WHERE should the scholar live? In solitude or in society? In the green stillness of the country, where he can hear the heart of nature beat, or in the dark, gray city, where he can hear and feel the throbbing heart of man? I will make answer for him, and say, in the dark gray city. Oh, they do greatly err, who think, that the stars are all the poetry which cities have; and therefore that the poet's only dwelling should be in sylvan solitudes, under the green roof of trees. Beautiful, no doubt, are all the forms of nature, when transfigured by the miraculous power of poetry; hamlets and harvest fields, and nut-brown waters, flowing ever under the forest, vast and shadowy, with all the sights and sounds of rural life. But after all, what are these but the decorations and painted scenery in the great theatre of human life? What are they but the coarse materials of the poet's song? Glorious indeed, is the world of God around us, but more glorious the world of God within us. There lies the land of song; there lies the poet's native land. The river of life, that flows through streets tumultuous, bearing along so many gallant hearts, so many wrecks of humanity;-the many homes and households, each a little world in itself, revolving round its fireside, as a central sun; all forms of human joy and suffering, brought into that narrow compass; and to be in this and be a part of this; acting, thinking, rejoicing, sorrowing, with his fellow-men;—such, such should be the poet's life. If he would describe the world, he should live in the world. The mind of the scholar, also, if you would have it large and liberal, should come in contact with other minds. It is better that his armour should be somewhat bruised even by rude encounters, than hang for ever rusting on the wall. Nor will his themes be few or trivial, because apparently shut in between the walls of houses, and having merely the decorations of street scenery. A ruined character is as picturesque as a ruined castle. There are dark abysses and yawning gulfs in the human heart, which can be rendered passable only by bridging them over with iron nerves and sinews, as Challey bridged the Savine in Switzerland, and Telford the sea between Anglesea and England, with chain bridges. These are the great themes of human thought; not green grass, and flowers, and moonshine. Besides, the mere external forms of nature we make our own, and carry with us into the city, by the power of memory.

MEN OF GENIUS.

FROM THE SAME.

It has become a common saying, that men of genius are always in advance of their age; which is true. There is something equally true, yet not so common; namely, that, of these men of genius, the best and bravest are in advance not only of their own age, but of every age. As the German prose poet says, every possible future is behind them. We cannot suppose, that a period of time will ever come, when the world, or any considerable portion of it, shall have come up abreast with these great minds, so as fully to comprehend them. And oh! how majestically they walk in history; some like the sun, with all his travelling glories round him; others wrapped in gloom, yet glorious as a night with stars. Through the else silent darkness of the past, the spirit hears their slow and solemn footsteps. Onward they pass, like those hoary elders seen in the sublime vision of an earthly paradise, attendant angels bearing golden lights before them, and, above and behind, the whole air painted with seven listed colours, as from the trail of pencils!

And yet, on earth, these men were not happy, -not all happy, in the outward circumstance of their lives. They were in want, and in pain, and familiar with prison bars, and the damp, weeping walls of dungeons! Oh, I have looked with wonder upon those, who, in sorrow and privation, and bodily discomfort, and sickness, which is the shadow of death, have worked right on to the accomplishment of their great purposes; toiling much, enduring much, fulfilling much;-and then, with shattered nerves, and sinews all unstrung, have laid themselves down in the grave, and slept the sleep of death,-and the world talks of them, while they sleep.

It would seem, indeed, as if all their sufferings had but sanctified them! As if the death-angel, in passing, had touched them with the hem of his garment, and made them holy! As if the hand of disease had been stretched out over them only to make the sign of the cross upon their souls. And as in the sun's eclipse we can behold the great stars shining in the heavens, so in this life eclipse have these men beheld the lights of the great eternity, burning solemnly and for ever!

LIFE.

FROM THE SAME.

LIFE is one, and universal; its forms many and individual. Throughout this beautiful and wonderful creation there is never-ceasing motion, without rest by night or day, ever weaving to and fro. Swifter than a weaver's shuttle it flies from birth to death, from death to birth; from the beginning seeks the end, and finds it not, for the seeming end is only a dim beginning of a new out-going and endeavour after the end. As the ice upon the mountain, when the warm breath of the summer's sun breathes upon it, melts, and divides into drops,

each of which reflects an image of the sun; so life, in the smile of God's love, divides itself into separate forms, each bearing in it and reflecting an image of God's love. Of all these forms the highest and most perfect in its god-likeness is the human soul. The vast cathedral of nature is full of holy scriptures, and shapes of deep, mysterious meaning; but all is solitary and silent there; no bending knee, no uplifted eye, no lip adoring, praying. Into this vast cathedral comes the human soul, seeking its Creator; and the universal silence is changed to sound, and the sound is harmonious, and has a meaning, and is comprehended and felt. It was an ancient saying of the Persians, that the waters rush from the mountains and hurry forth into all the lands to find the lord of the earth; and the flame of the fire, when it awakes, gazes no more upon the ground, but mounts heavenward to seek the lord of heaven; and here and there the earth has built the great watch-towers of the mountains, and they lift their heads far up into the sky, and gaze ever upward and around, to see if the Judge of the World comes not! Thus in nature herself, without man, there lies a waiting, and hoping, a looking and yearning, after an unknown somewhat. Yes; when, above there, where the mountain lifts its head over all others, that it may be alone with the clouds and storms of heaven, the lonely eagle looks forth into the gray dawn, to see if the day comes not! when, by the mountain torrent, the brooding raven listens to hear if the chamois is returning from his nightly pasture in the valley; and when the soon uprising sun calls out the spicy odours of the thousand flowers, the Alpine flowers, with heaven's deep blue and the blush of sunset on their leaves;-then there awakes in nature, and the soul of man can see and comprehend it, an expectation and a longing for a future revelation of God's majesty. It awakens, also, when in the fulness of life, field and forest rest at noon, and through the stillness is heard only the song of the grasshopper and the hum of the bee; and when at evening the singing lark, up from the sweet-swelling vineyards rises, or in the later hours of night Orion puts on his shining armour, to walk forth in the fields of heaven. But in the soul of man alone is this longing changed to certainty and fulfilled. For lo! the light of the sun and the stars shines through the air, and is nowhere visible and seen; the planets hasten with more than the speed of the storm through infinite space, and their footsteps are not heard, but where the sunlight strikes the firm surface of the planets, where the stormwind smites the wall of the mountain cliff, there is the one seen and the other heard. Thus is the glory of God made visible, and may be seen, where in the soul of men it meets its likeness changeless and firm-standing. Thus, then, stands man;-a mountain on the boundary between two worlds;-its foot in one, its summit far-rising into the other. From this summit the manifold landscape of life is visible, the way of the past and perishable, which we have left behind us; and, as we evermore ascend, bright glimpses of the daybreak of eternity beyond us!

PAUL FLEMMING RESOLVES.

FROM THE SAME.

AND now the sun was growing high and warm. A little chapel, whose door stood open, seemed to invite Flemming to enter and enjoy the grateful coolness. He went in. There was no one there. The walls were covered with paintings and sculpture of the rudest kind, and with a few funeral tablets. There was nothing there to move the heart to devotion; but in that hour the heart of Flemming was weak,-weak as a child's. He bowed his stubborn knees and wept. And oh! how many disappointed hopes, how many bitter recollections, how much of wounded pride, and unrequited love, were in those tears, through which he read on a marble tablet in the chapel wall opposite, this singular inscription

Look not mournfully into the past: It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present: It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear, and with a manly heart."

It seemed to him, as if the unknown tenant of that grave had opened his lips of dust, and spoken to him the words of consolation, which his soul needed, and which no friend had yet spoken. In a moment the anguish of his thoughts was still. The stone was rolled away from the door of his heart; death was no longer there, but an angel clothed in white. He stood up, and his eyes were no more bleared with tears; and, looking into the bright, morning heaven, he said :

"I will be strong!"

Men sometimes go down into tombs, with painful longings to behold once more the faces of their departed friends; and as they gaze upon them, lying there so peacefully with the semblance that they wore on earth, the sweet breath of heaven touches them, and the features crumble and fall together, and are but dust. So did his soul then descend for the last time into the great tomb of the past, with painful longings to behold once more the dear faces of those he had loved; and the sweet breath of heaven touched them, and they would not stay, but crumbled away and perished as he gazed. They, too, were dust. And thus, far-sounding, he heard the great gate of the past shut behind him as the divine poet did the gate of paradise; when the angel pointed him the way up the holy mountain; and to him likewise was it forbidden to look back.

In the life of every man, there are sudden transitions of feeling, which seem almost miraculous. At once, as if some magician had touched the heavens and the earth, the dark clouds melt into the air, the wind falls, and serenity succeeds the storm. The causes which produce these sudden changes may have been long at work within us, but the changes themselves are instantaneous, and apparently without sufficient cause. It was so with Flemming and from that hour forth he resolved,

that he would no longer veer with every shifting i wind of circumstance; no longer be a child's play thing in the hands of fate, which we ourselves do make or mar. He resolved henceforward not to lean on others; but to walk self-confident and selfpossessed; no longer to waste his years in vain regrets, nor wait the fulfilment of boundless hopes and indiscreet desires; but to live in the present wisely, alike forgetful of the past, and careless of what the mysterious future might bring. from that moment he was calm, and strong; he was reconciled with himself! His thoughts turned to his distant home beyond the sea. An indescribable, sweet feeling rose within him.

46

And

Thither will I turn my wandering footsteps," said he; and be a man among men, and no longer a dreamer among shadows. Henceforth be mine a life of action and reality! I will work in my own sphere, nor wish it other than it is. This alone is health and happiness. This alone is life.

'Life that shall send

A challenge to its end,

And when it comes, say, Welcome, friend!?

Why have I not made these sage reflections, this wise resolve, sooner? Can such a simple result spring only from the long and intricate process of experience? Alas! it is not till time, with reckless hand, has torn out half the leaves from the book of human life, to light the fires of passion with, from day to day, that man begins to see, that the leaves which remain are few in number, and to remember, faintly at first, and then more clearly, that, upon the earlier pages of that book, was fain read over again. Then come listless irresowritten a story of happy innocence, which he would lution, and the inevitable inaction of despair; or else the firm resolve to record upon the leaves that still remain, a more noble history than the child's story, with which the book began."

THE GLACIER OF THE RHONE.

FROM THE SAME.

ERE long he reached the magnificent glacier of the Rhone; a frozen cataract, more than two thousand feet in height, and many miles broad at its base. It fills the whole valley between two mountains, running back to their summits. At the base it is arched, like a dome; and above, jagged and rough, and resembles a mass of gigantic crystals, of a pale emerald tint, mingled with white. A snowy crust covers its surface; but at every rent and crevice the pale green ice shines clear in the sun. Its shape is that of a glove, lying with the palm downwards, and the fingers crooked and close together. It is a gauntlet of ice, which, centuries ago, winter, the king of these mountains, threw down in defiance to the sun; and year by year the sun strives in vain to lift it from the ground on the point of his glittering spear.

THIS industrious and prolific author is a native of Charleston. His mother died while he was an infant, and his father, failing soon after as a merchant, emigrated to the western country, leaving him to the care of an aged grandmother, with a small maternal property, which she hoarded so carefully as to withhold the appropriations necessary for his education. He received therefore no other instruction than such as are given in one of the grammar schools of the city, which constitutional feebleness and frequent confinement by sickness prevented him from attending with much regularity. Ill health however had its advantages. Incapable of joining in the more hardy sports of his age, he was driven to books for amusement, and read with never-failing zest whatever came in his way, of poetry, romance, biography, or history, and with particular avidity gleaned from travels and tradition all that related to the colonial and revolutionary periods in the Carolinas. He grew apace, in physical and intellectual strength, wrote for the press on all varieties of subjects, and on his twentyfirst birthday, was admitted to practise in the courts of Charleston as an attorney and counsellor at law.

Mr. Simms published his first book, Lyrical and Other Poems, in 1825, when he was about eighteen years of age. It was followed in 1827 by Early Lays, in 1829 by The Vision of Cortez and other Poems, and in 1830 by The Tri-Color, or Three Days of Blood in Paris. There are gleams of sunshine in all these youthful essays, and some of the songs and other short pieces have a dash and spirit, and genuine feeling in them which promised much from a judicious culture; but he had not even then patience for revision, and perhaps his best performances should be regarded as below the level of his powers.

As soon as Mr. Simms came into possession of his inherited property he purchased The Charleston City Gazette, and with ambition, energy, and confidence, entered upon the difficult profession of an editor. It was an unfortunate period for the experiment, and

doubly so for one of his principles, and unhesitating independence of character. He was a Unionist, and for a considerable period his paper was the only one in the state to breast the storm of Nullification. His failure, under the circumstances, was a matter of course. At the end of a few years he found that he had exhausted his pecuniary resources and involved himself in debt. He disposed of his establishment, therefore, and nothing daunted by the past, decided suddenly and finally upon his future pursuits. It was a bold undertaking, but he determined to retrieve his fortune by literature, and immediately entered upon measures of preparation.

By this time he had lost his father, and his wife, whom he had married before he was of age. He had made two long journeys through the south and west, impressing on his mind views of their wildest and most beautiful scenery, to be transferred to the pages of dreamed-of poems and romances, and in the spring of 1832 he visited for the first time the north. After travelling through the most interesting portions of the country he paused at the rural village of Hingham, in Massachusetts, and there prepared for the press the longest and best of his poems, Atalantis, a Story of the Sea, which was published in the following winter in New York. This was succeeded in 1833 by Martin Faber, the Story of a Criminal, and the Book of my Lady; in 1834 by Guy Rivers, a Tale of Georgia; in 1835 by The Yemasee, a Romance of Carolina, and The Partisan, a Tale of the Revolution; in 1836 by Mellichampe, a Legend of the Santee; in 1837 by a collection of Tales

*Martin Faber, a gloomy and passionate tale, appeared soon after the English novel entitled Misserimus, and was instantly declared by reviewers here and abroad to be an imitation of that work. But they were at fault in this, as they are in nine-tenths of this sort of charges. Martin Faber was expanded from a tale, which Mr. Simms published ten years before, in a magazine in Charleston, containing all the distinguishing traits and scenes of the subsequent romance. It belongs to the family of which Godwin's Caleb Williams is the best known model; but those who read the two works will fail to find any imitation on the part of the American author.