mind. His battle pieces impress us more with compassion for the vanquished, than admiration for the victor. We feel more sympathy for the sufferings of his heroines, than we do of delight at their beauty. His heroes, if young, are cut off before their fame is achieved; or if old, have survived their strength and prowess. Even Fingal himself, is at last shewn to us as a feeble ghost, lamenting the loss of his mortal fame and vigor."

We conclude our extracts from these interesting Lectures with the following striking critique upon the most interesting class of Shakspeare's characters.

"How subtle and fine was Shakspeare's knowledge of the human mind! How beautifully has he, in the three characters of Lear, Edgar, and the Fool, discriminated between the real insanity of the first, the assumed madness of the second, and the official buffoonery of the third. Lear's thoughts are ever dwelling on his daughters; his mind is a desert, and that one idea, like the Banana tree, fixes in it its thousand roots, to the exclusion of all others. How different is this from the wild farrago of Mad Tom, who is obliged to talk an unintelligible gibberish, for the purpose of supporting his assumed part; through which his real character is every now and then seen, and discovers itself in a sympathy for the unhappy king. The conversation of the Fool, on the contrary, is composed of scraps of old songs and sayings, which he applies with bitter mirthfulness to the situation of his master. It is also worthy of notice, among those minute beauties which are so often passed over without comment, that, as Lear's misery deepens and increases, the witticisms of the Fool become less frequent; and unable longer to indulge in his jests, he shews his sympathy by his silence. This is finely imagined, and worth all the eloquent sorrow that an ordinary playwright would have indited. In the early part of the tragedy, the Fool is as frequent an interlocutor as Lear himself; but in that powerfully pathetic scene, in which the distracted king imagines, that his daughters are being arranged before him for their crimes, he indulges in only one sorry jest at the beginning, and is afterwards mute; while Edgar also, unable any longer to play the maniac, exclaims,

My tears begin to take his part so much,
They'll mar my counterfeiting.'

It is thus that genius effects its noblest triumphs, by identifying its actors with its auditors."

We should like to make farther extracts from this interesting book, but our limits forbid. We think the great fault in them (one which belongs less to the natural powers than the education of the writer) is a want of sustained spirit and beauty. He was, evidently, not a man of much mental discipline, and the fine visions floating in his own fancy, are sometimes but dimly shadowed forth to the reader's eye by his irregular pencil. His style is careless, and there is sometimes visible a deficiency of taste in his language, which, for one who had so much taste of perception, is rather surprising; but the evidence throughout his works is that of a beautiful and elevated mindone that had followed its own bent rather than the direction of schools, and sought out the beauty for which it lived with a caprice and waywardness which after years might have corrected, though perhaps, like the wild grace of a gipsey, it might not be improved by the refinement.

THE DEATH RACE.

Founded on Fact.

THE winds are on the stormy wave,
With flapping wings and fitful roar :
Just then they sung a merry stave,
Now with a shriek they wildly soar,
Now laugh by turns and rave.
The yesty waves in fierce turmoil
All up along the sounding shore
Climb faster, faster than before,
Then back, like baffled ranks, recoil.

Unlike that bright and balmy day,
When here I stood, in merry June,
And listened to the lively tune
Of winds and waves in frolic play,
I saw the distant mountains tall

In rich transparent azure roll'd,
And sunset throwing over all

His radiant robe of quivering gold.

A quicker breath was in the trees,
The hurrying billows grew more dark,
When, sudden, on the freshening breeze,
Burst, like an answer to the seas,

A stag hound's deep mouth'd bark.
And loud and clear the deep bay rung

In that lone place like sound of fear, And scarce I trust my startled ear, When, suddenly, there sprung,

With foaming limbs, and reeking side, And noble antlers branching wide,

A dun-deer on the lead;

And close upon his haunches came, With drooping ears and eye of flame, A hound, forespent with speed.

On comes the stag in furious race; Without a moment's breathing space, One mighty bound he made, and fell Just where the eddying bubbles ride On the mid current's rapid tide

The staunch hound follow'd well. But different now the struggling strife, Small chance have stag or hound for life,

Within thy surge, now wild and black,
Thou broad, bright bosom'd Merrimac.

Dark rolls the river to the main ;

And on its bounding billow down Go stag and hound; but ne'er again,

By forest glade or mountain brown,
That hound shall scent the morning air,
Or rouse the dun-deer from his lair;
Down sinks he in the wave.

Not so the deer. With sinewy limbs,
And noble heart, for life he swims,

Oh, that they might but save!
He nears the land-now, if he gain
That jutting headland-Oh, in vain!
Strong rolls the current-soon he'll be
On the immeasurable sea.

Beyond the wide bay's stedfast strand,
Stretches a heap of shifting sand:
A furlong's length, perchance or more,
It rises from the yellow shore.
Here the swift river in his pride,
Fights loudest with the ocean tide,
When his broad phalanx comes to urge
Backward the long reluctant surge.
To this strong breaker, where he whirls
Up to the skies his howling curls,
Silent, but swift, in full career,
Struggling in vain, that good dun-deer
The blue, deceitful wave doth bear;
He may not live a moment there!
He gains the sand-see! in his eye,
Gathers despair's last courage high.
On come old ocean's dogs; they glare,
New fang'd, as for a thousand slaughters,
When up-how like a thing of air!
Over the whole bright host of waters

Seem'd he to bound!-alas! no more!

Then burst his heart-his struggle's over,
And the wild rushing waters cover,

And tear him as they laugh and roar.

G. L

ABORIGINES OF AMERICA.

NO. I.

EVER since the discovery of America, by Columbus, in 1492, it has been an inquiry of considerable interest with the learned, "what was the origin of its ancient and first inhabitants ?" When that enterprising navigator first visited the islands, which skirt the eastern coast of this continent, between the equator and the northern tropic, he found a race of men, by which, according to their own account, the places where they resided, and the vicinity, had been long inhabited. They were in a rude and uncivilized state, it is true; and their traditions of former and remote events were indistinct and obscure. Yet they had the outlines of a tradition, common to all the native inhabitants of this new world, respecting the deluge, the dispersion of mankind at a very early period, and the emigration of their progenitors from a far distant country to the northwest, to this continent. In his last voyage in 1503, Columbus visited several places on the continent, in the northern parts of South America, where he found the natives more numerous and more civilized. And when the Spaniards, under Cortez, in 1519, '20, landed on this new continent, in the southern part of what is now called North America, penetrated the interior and conquered the city and kingdom of Mexico, they met with a crowded population in most places through which they passed, which, by their buildings, public and private, their gardens and roads, indicated settlements of great antiquity. It is evident from the letters written by Cortez to his royal master in Spain, and from the journals and accounts of others who accompanied him,* that the opulence, the improvements and general condition of the inhabitants were far superior to those of merely savage tribes; such as were found, at a later period, in the more northern and eastern parts of the continent. But, unfortunately, little attention was given to the history of the Americans, by the early visitors and conquerors of the country. The leader was chiefly, if not wholly desirous of wealth. He sought for mines of gold and silver, in the bowels of the earth, or for the rich treasures of the Mexican princes. His attendants were occupied by the same objects. Their journals afford only incidental notices of the customs, or of the antiquities and history of that remarkable people.

When visited by the Spaniards in 1520, the Mexicans and other nations in Anahuac, were not, indeed, acquainted with alphabet

*Bernal Diaz, and the anonymous conqueror; Herera, Asosta and others who wrote later, but not without great inquiry and research, give a similar account of the country.

writing, or the use of the precious metals as a medium of exchange in the common business of society. But they had the knowledge of fusing metals; for the gold and silver ores which abound in that country, were cast into utensils and vessels, and used in their domestic dwellings and public temples. The people resided in large towns or cities; had permanent cultivations of land and places of fixed abode, which was not the case with all the tribes in the northeast of the continent, nor with mankind, generally, in a rude and savage state. Some of their cities were very extensive and splendid in buildings, and of great population. At the time Mexico was conquered by the Spaniards, it was probably as populous as any city of Asia, excepting Babylon or Nineveh, within 1000 years from the general deluge. The learned Humboldt supposes the population of Anahuac, the name given to the territory now called Mexico, was then much greater than it has been at any period since. The city of Mexico was nine miles in circumference; contained 60,000 buildings, and about 250,000 inhabitants. Some other cities in this quarter were also extensive and populous. The houses were large and elegant, equal to any in old Spain. The country was filled with people, and scarcely a foot of land was uncultivated. The palace in the city of Mexico had twenty doors of entrance, and one hundred rooms; and could conveniently hold 4000 people. These, surely, are proofs of great antiquity and of civilization, as well as of population and wealth.

Among the Mexicans, at this period, were found various hieroglyphic paintings, for perpetuating the knowledge of important events, connected with the history of their race and nation. Nor must these hieroglyphics be confounded with common, rude drawings, which are used by the most savage tribes simply to represent the person or animal which was painted, and which is the earliest and rudest effort to make known an absent object. Some of the Mexican hieroglyphics were used to express general and abstract ideas; and many to record chronological occurrences, which had happened to their ancestors in very remote periods. The learned have to regret, that most of these paintings referred to by the Spaniards who early visited Mexico, are now no more. Some were wantonly destroyed by the military conquerors; some by the bigoted Catholic priests, and some by the natives, to prevent their falling into the hands of their oppressors, and some lost through the carelessness of illiterate persons, into whose hands they fell. Some few indeed were taken from the temples and other public buildings, and sent to Europe, where they were (rudely) copied and published by Purchase, in his collection of voyages, in the beginning of the seventeenth century. Some were also collected and described by D. Siguenza, a native Mexican of family and learning, in the seventeenth century;