war with it. If America has been violent in this war of words, it is clear that we have not been moderate: even her federalists have been insulted by us. When she has spoken of those whom she thought her great men, and mentioned Patrick Henry, it has been contemptuously asked, in one of our most popular publications, "Who is he?" The memory of Patrick Henry is deeply respected by his countrymen. He was the first orator who stood up in an American assembly to propose the resolution of their independence. Whether we choose to call him great or not, he was a bold and distinguished man. His name is inwoven in his country's history, and ought to have been known to every one pretending to write about America. This is not the way to deal, either effectively or fairly, with the citizens of the United States. Let us increase the number of their liberals, by our own liberality. Their Republicans, in candid moments, will acknowledge defects in their own system of policy, calculated to make an Englishman better satisfied with his own institutions-acknowledgments which their pride will justly refuse to our haughty treatment; and it must be owned that we treat them haughtily, when we subjoin to the name of one of their best and bravest patriots the ignorant and insolent interrogation of "Who is he?" There is no need to flatter their selfcomplacency. But surely it need not compromise our dignity, that the general character of our publications should gain over the young American, who is to be the future senator or ruler of his country, to form pleasing associations with the political literature of Britain. It were better that the language recording his ties of affinity with us, were not the only one, perhaps, in the world, in which he can read humiliating truths or irritating falsehoods about his country, and expressions of contempt, calculated to make him vow, in the weakness of human nature, that no love shall be lost between himself and Old England. The worst thing urged against America is her negro slavery-a theme, no doubt, for the general philanthropist, but not for the Englishman as a ground of unqualified national vanity. Slaves cannot breathe in England. Yes, but they can breathe in the English West Indies, and breathe heavier groans (it is said) than in America. And we profit by this slavery, and we pay taxes to maintain it. The negro, however, is free the moment he reaches our shores. And could he reach them at his pleasure, we might then boast that we took the chains from his limbs, and bound them round his heart. But he cannot come over to us. An English soldier would help to kill him, if he as serted his liberty; and the main power that coerces him is English. Now, the plea which our own colonists allege for possessing slaves is necessity, and we either admit or reject this plea. If we absolve the West Indian, we cannot condemn the American. If we denounce them both as tyrants, it is clear that, of the two, we are most nearly and practically concerned with our fellow subjects of the West Indies. If we can justify or palliate their slavery, let us make allowance for that of America. And if we cannot justify it, then, before we preach the emancipation of slaves to another empire, we should first make efforts to accomplish that emancipation in our own. It is prophesying at random to speak of the future dependence of the American language and literature upon ours; and it is unfair to deride their future prospects of fame, which are neither contemptible nor chimerical. In maintaining real rights, let us be resolute; but not in bandying irritating and useless speculations. Much less in accusations that heighten national antipathies. How degrading to both countries was the spectacle when the American press accused Englishmen of stirring their punch with the amputated fingers of Irish rebels, and when England retorted by charging American parents with letting their children run drunk about the streets-a loathsome rivalship in scandal that would have disgraced honest fishwomen. From calumnies like these, base as they are, spring antipathies that prepare the hu man mind for the guilt of war. The serpents' teeth, though buried in the 1 440 Biography of Remarkable Characters lately deceased. dirt, produce armed men. The evil of nationally hostile writers lives long af ter their short reputations-it is felt by posterity, when their works are gone to the grocer's shop. In all that the Editor has said, he has not meant to justify the malignity or injustice of any American railer against England. He has only argued that British pride should be above exasperation, and should be inclined rather to pardon than punish the irascible anxiety of the Americans respect ing their national character, which, though great for their age as a nation, is yet proceeding, and incomplete. That very anxiety, though it may have been misdirected, is a virtuous emotion în a young nation. [VOL. 10 If any ill-natured remarks should be made on this apology which the Editor has offered the people of the United States, he can promise his critics one advantage, that he will (in all probability) make no reply to them. But the sober part of the British community will scarcely require an excuse for his having spoken thus respectfully of the Americans. It was a duty peculiarly imposed on him by the candid manner of Mr. Everett's reply; and it was otherwise, as he felt in his heart, deservedly claimed by a people eulogized by Burke and Chatham-by a land that brings such recollections to the mind as the wisdom of Washington and Franklin, and the heroism of Warren and Montgomery. T. C. DEATH OF JOHN KEATS, THE POET. Some, in their age, Ripe for the sickle; others, young, like him, MR R. KEATS died at Rome, Feb. 23, 1821, whither he had gone for the benefit of his health. His complaint was a consumption, under which he had languished for some time; but his death was accelerated by a cold caught in his voyage to Italy. It is rather singular, that, in the year 1816, he expressed an ardent desire to visit the shores of Italy, in one of his earliest productions, and is too beautiful to be omitted in this humble tribute to his memory. Happy is England! I could be content To see no other verdure than its own; For skies Italian, and an inward groan Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging; with the writings of this young man : yet they were full of high imagination and delicate fancy, and his images were beautiful and more entirely his own, perhaps, than those of any living writer whatever. He had a fine ear, a tender heart, and at times great force and originality of expression; and notwithstanding all this, he has been suffered to rise and pass away almost without a notice the laurel has been awarded (for the present) to other brows; the bolder aspirants have been allowed to take their station on the slippery steps of the Temple of Fame, while he has been nearly hidden among the crowd during his life, and has at last died, solitary and in sorrow, in a foreign land. It is at all times difficult, if not impossible, to argue others into a love of poets and poetry: it is altogether a matter of feeling, and we must leave to time (while it hallows his memory) to do justice to the reputation of Keats. There were many, however, even among the critics, who held his powers Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing, in high estimation; and it was well ob And float with them about the summer waters. served by the Editor of the Edinburgh Mr. Keats was, in the truest sense of Review, that there was no other author the word, a POET. There is but a whatever, whose writings would form small portion of the public acquainted so good a test by which to try the love which any one professed to bear towards poetry. In proof of this assertion, we need only refer to the following exquisite Ode, which, that we may do ample justice to the author, we shall quote entire. The poem will be more striking to the reader, when he understands that it was written not long before Mr. Keats left England, when the -author's powerful mind had for some time past inhabited a sickened and shaking body, and had suffered from the baleful effects of the poisoned shafts of critical malignity! ODE TO THE NIGHTINGALE. One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk. That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin,and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs ; Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: I Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown 'Thro' verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, Wherewith the seasonable month endows The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, I have been half in love with easefu! Death, Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Was it a vision or a waking dream? Is it but the hollow wind Thro' the dreary sea beach sounding Is it but the hunted hind Thro' the leafy desert bounding? "Tis the tread of Grecian men, Rushing thro' the twilight pale; 'Tis the echo of the glen To their trumpet's brazen wail. What has lit that sanguine star, Sitting on the mountain's brow? 'Tis the fiery sign of war To the warrior tribes below. 3H ATHENEUM VOL. 10. GREECE, Where was born the sudden flash, Glitters in the morn their mail' Like a storm the march advances, With a deep and gathering sound; Now above the throng of lances, See the ancient flags abound! Bearing each a glorious name, Each a summons to the soul, Each a guiding lightning flame,Soon the thunderbolt shall roll! Not a spot that host are treading, But has been a hero's grave; But has seen a tyrant bleeding, But has seen a ransom'd slave! Moslem, fly thy hour is come, For the sword shall smite the chain In that shout has peal'd thy doom, Greece shall be herself again! ANECDOTES OF ROUSSEAU. ORIGINAL LETTERS OF DAVID HUME, THE HISTORIAN. CONTINUED. HAD asked M. Rousseau the question you propose to me: He answered, that the story of his Heloise had some general & distant resemblance to Reality such as was sufficient to warn his Imagination and assist his invention: But that all the chief circumstances were fictitious. I have heard in France, that he had been employ'd to teach Music to a young Lady, a Boarder in a Convent at Lyons; and that the Master & Scholar fell mutually in love with each other, but the affair was not attended with any Consequences. I think this work his Masterpiece; though he himself told me, that he valued most his Contrat Sociale; which is as preposterous a judgement as that of Milton, who preferr'd the Paradise regain'd to his other performances. This man, the most singular of all human Beings, has at last left me ; and I have very little hopes of ever being able, for the future, to enjoy much of his company, tho' he says, that if I settle either in London or in Edinburgh, he will take a journey on foot every year to visit me. Mr.Davenport, a gentleman of 5 or £6000 (a year) in the North of England, & a man of great humanity and of a good understanding, has taken the charge of him. He has a house called Wooton, in the Peake of Derby, situated amidst mountains and rocks and streams and forrests, which pleases the wild imagination, and solitary humour of Rousseau; and as the Master seldom inhabited it, and only kept there a plain Table for Servants, he offer'd me to give it up to myFriend; I accepted, on condition that he wou'd take from him 30 pounds a year of Board for himself and his Gouvernante, which he was so good natur'd as to agree to. Rousseau has about £80 a year which he has acquired by Contracts with his Booksellers, and by an Annuity of 25 pounds a year which he accepted from Lord Mareschal. This is the only man, who has yet been able to make him accept of money. He was desperately resolv'd to rush into this solitude, notwithstanding all my remonstrances; and I forsee, that he will be unhappy in that situation, as he has indeed been always, in all situations. He will be entirely without occupation, without company, and almost without amusement of any kind. He has read very little during the course of his life, and he has now totally renounced all reading: He has seen very little, and has no manner of Curiosity to see or remark: He has reflected, properly speaking, and study'd, very little; and has not indeed much knowledge: He has only felt, during the whole course of his life; and in this respect, his sen sibility rises to a pitch beyond what I have seen any Example of: But it still gives him a more acute feeling of Pain than of pleasure. He is like a man who were stript not only of his cloaths, but of his skin, and turn'd out in that situation to combat with the rude and boisterous Elements, such as perpetually disturb this lower World. I shall give you a remarkable instance of his turn of character in this respect: It pass'd in my room, the evening before his Departure. He had resolved to set out with his Gouvernante in a post Chaise ; but Davenport, willing to cheat him and save him some money, told him, that he † Addressed to the Revd. Dr. Hugh Blair at Edinburgh: had found a retour chaise for the place, ceeded at first; but Rousseau, after- I now understand perfectly his Aver sion to company, which appears so surprising in a man well qualify'd for the entertainment of Company, and which the greater part of the World takes for affectation. He has frequent and long fits of the spleen, from the state of his mind or Body, call it which you please; and from his extreme Sensibility of temper, during that disposition, Company is a torment to him. When his spirits and health and good humour return, his fancy affords him so much and such agreeable occupation, that to call him off from it gives him uneasiness; and even the Writing of Books, he tells me, as it limits and restrains his fancy to one subject, is not an agreeable entertainment. He never will write any more; and never shou'd have wrote at all, could he have slept a-nights. But he lies awake commonly, and to keep himself from tiring, he usually compos'd something, which he wrote down when he arose. He assures me, that he composes very slowly, and with great labour and difficulty. He is naturally very modest, and even ignorant of his own Superiority: His fire, whch frequently rises in conversation, is gentle and temperate; he is never, in the least, arrogant and domineering, and is indeed one of the best bred men I ever knew.* I shall give you such an instance of his modesty as must necessarily be sincere. When we were on the road, I recommended to him the learning of English, without which, I told him, he wou'd never enjoy entire liberty, nor be fully independent, and at his own disposal. He was sensible I was in the right; and said, that he heard there were two English Translations of his Emile or Treatise of Education; He wou'd get them, as soon as he arriv'd in London; and as he knew the subject, he wou'd have no other trouble, than to learn or guess the words: This wou'd save him some pains in consulting the Dictionary; and as he improv`d, it wou'd amuse him to compare the Translations, which was the best. Accordingly, soon after our arrival, I procur'd him the Books, but he return'd them in a few days, saying that they cou'd be of This letter is dated in March, 1766. In the course of the succeeding year, Mr. Hume was taught not to think quite so favourably of his protege in those particulars. |