"For every time that she tries, Some things she'd be paid for, to make, And lays down the baby, it cries, And that makes my sick brother wake. "I'd go to the yard and get chips, But then it would make me too sad; We think it may decently pass, The children who trust to his word. "And now, if I only can sell The matches I brought out to-day, I think I shall do well, very And mother 'll rejoice at the pay." "Fly home, little bird," then I thought, Fly home full of joy to your nest!" For I took all the matches she brought, And Mary may tell you the rest. IT SNOWS. It snows! it snows! from out the sky But now the wind comes whistling loud, It spreads! it curls! it mounts and whirls, Before his beams, in sparkling streams, And thus, with life, it ever goes; "Tis shade and shine!-It snows! it snows! The prattler had stirred, in the veteran's breast, The soldier returned to his weary campaigns; "I carried my musket, as one that must be Should go, but the chains of my country to melt! "I sprinkled my blood upon Lexington's sod, And Charlestown's green height to the war-drum I trod. From the fort, on the Hudson, our guns I depressed, The proud coming sail of the foe to arrest. I stood at Stillwater, the Lakes and White Plains, And offered for freedom to empty my veins! Dost now ask me, child, since thou hear'st where I've been, Why my brow is so furrowed, my locks white and thin Why this faded eye cannot go by the line, Who bore sixty years since,' such perils for thee? HYMN OF THE REAPERS. Our Father, to fields that are white, In praises our voices unite To thee, who hast made them thy care. The seed, that was dropped in the soil, In One, who, beholding the toil, Would crown it at length with the sheaf. And ever our faith shall be firm In thee, who hast nourished the root; Whose finger has led up the germ, And finished the blade and the fruit! The heads, that are heavy with grain, To bind up, and bear off thy sheaves, As that which we gather to-day! Flow out our fresh off rings to yield. The Reapers! the Reapers rejoice, And send up their song from the field! PARK BENJAMIN. PARK BENJAMIN is descended from a New England family, which came originally from Wales. His father resided as a merchant in Demerara, in British Guiana. The son in his infancy suffered from an illness, the improper treatment of which left him with a permanent lameness. He was brought to America, was educated in New England, studied law at Cambridge, and was admitted to practice in Connecticut. He soon, however, withdrew from the law to the pursuits of literature, embarking in the editorship of the New England Magazine in March, 1835, shortly after the retirement of its projector, Mr. Buckingham. In less than a year he brought the work to New York, continuing it with the publishing house of Dearborn and Co., with which he became connected, as the American Monthly Magazine, five volumes of which were published from January, 1836, to June, 1838. He next published the New Yorker, a weekly journal, in association with Horace Greeley; and in January, 1840, established the New World, a weekly newspaper of large size, which met the wants of the day by its cheap, wholesale republication of the English magazine literature. It was also well sustained by a corps of spirited writers which the editor drew round him in its original departments. Of those more immediately connected with the conduct of the paper were Epes Sargent, James Aldrich, H. C. Deming, and Rufus W. Griswold; while among the frequent contributors were Judge W. A. Duer, Judge J. D. Hammond, author of the Life and Times of Silas Wright, H. W. Herbert, Charles Lanman, W. M. Evarts, John O. Sargent, John Jay, E. S. Gould, and many others. Mr. Aldrich was a merchant of New York, and the writer of a number of poems which find a place in the collections, though never brought together by the author into a volume. One of the most popular of these is entitled A DEATH-BED. Her suff'ring ended with the day, And breathed the long, long night away But when the sun in all his state, Illumed the eastern skies, She passed through glory's morning-gate, The success of the New World led to the cheap publishing enterprises of Winchester, which were conducted with boldness, and had for the time a marked effect on the book trade.* Mr. Benjamin conducted the New World for nearly five years, when it passed into the hands of Mr. Charles Eames, a writer of marked ability, by whom it was edited for a short time in 1845, when it was finally discontinued. In 1846 Mr. Benjamin projected, at Baltimore, The Western Continent, a weekly newspaper on the plan of the New World. It was published only for a short time. The next year One of the most extensive of the Winchester publications was an entire reprint in numbers of Johns' translation of Froissart's Chronicles. The success of this work, in popular form, at a low price, was a decided trinmph for his system. He also made a hit with the early translation of Sue's Mysteries of Paris, which was executed by Mr. Detning. he published another weekly paper on a similar plan, involving a liberal outlay of expenditure, The American Mail, of which twelve numbers were issued from June 5 to August 21. Since the discontinuance of these newspaper enterprises Mr. Benjamin has frequently appeared before the public with favor and success, in different parts of the country, as a lecturer on popular topics and literature. Mr. Benjamin's poems, lyrics, and occasional effusions are numerous, but have not been collected. They are to be found scattered over the entire periodical literature of the country for the last twenty years. His only distinct publications have been several college poems of a descriptive and satirical character. A poem on The Meditation of Nature was delivered before the alumni of Washington College, at Hartford, in 1832; Poetry, a Satire, before the Mercantile Library Association of New York, the same year; Infatuation, before the Mercantile Library of Boston, in 1844. THE DEPARTED. The departed! the departed! And they glide above our memories But where the cheerful lights of home Can never more return. The good, the brave, the beautiful, Or where the hurrying night winds In the cities of the dead! I look around and feel the awe I start to hear the stirring sounds Is borne upon the breeze. I scarce can think earth's minstrelsy As their remembered words. I sometimes dream their pleasant smiles I know that they are happy, But my heart is very desolate To think that they are gone. INDOLENCE. Time! thou destroy'st the relics of the past, The place that knew them now no longer knows. Yet triumph not, oh, Time; strong towers decay, But a great name shall never pass away! SPORT. To see a fellow of a summer's morning, With a large foxhound of a slumberous eye Of harmless murder, yet it is to me For well I know that when he's out of town, And undestructive sleep till game and light are flown. STEPHEN GREENLEAF BULFINCH, A UNITARIAN CLERGYMAN, and contributor to the collection of hymns in use in that denomination, was born in Boston, June 18th, 1809. At nine years of age he was taken to Washington, in the District of Columbia, where his father, Charles Bulfinch, had been appointed architect of the Capitol. He was graduated at the Columbian College, D. C., in 1826, and entered the Divinity School at Cambridge the following year. From 1830 to 1837, with some interruptions, he ministered as a Unitarian clergyman at Augusta, Georgia. After this he preached and kept school at Pittsburgh, Pa., for a short time, and was then engaged in similar relations for six years at Washington, D. C. In 1845 he became settled at Nashua, N. H., and in 1852 removed to Boston, where he has been since established. His writings are a volume, Contemplations of the Saviour, published at Boston in 1832; a volume of Poems published at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1834; The Holy Land, issued in Ware's Sunday Library in 1834; Lays of the Gospel, 1845; a devotional volume, Communion Thoughts, 1852; with several sermons and contributions to the Magazines. Father! these rocks are thine, Earth trembled and her solid hills were rent. Poured forth by thee from its rude mountain urn, Where haply, gems of orient lustre burn. I hear the eagle scream; And not in vain his cry! Amid the wild Thou wilt not listen to thy human child? God of the rock and flood! In this deep solitude I feel thee nigh. Turn on thy suppliant child a parent's eye. My placid current, from defilement free, It finds the ocean of its rest in Thee! ROBERT CHARLES WINTHROP. MR. WINTHROP is justly and honorably considered a representative man of Massachusetts. Tracing his descent through six generations of a family always eminent in the state, he arrives at the first emigrant of the name, John Winthrop, who became the first Governor of the colony, and who bore not only the truncheon of office but the pen of the chronicler.* His son John, the Governor of Connecticut, was also a man of liberal tastes, was one of the founders of the Royal Society, and contributed to its proceedings and collections. His second wife was a step-daughter of Hugh Peters. Of his two sons, one of them, Fitz John, was Governor of Connecticut, and the younger, Wait Still (a family and not a fanciful Puritanical designation), became Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Massachusetts. The latter left a son John, who renewed the connexion with the Royal Society and removed to England. His son John married in New England and was a gentleman of wealth and leisure, passing his time in New London, Conn. His son, Thomas Lindall Winthrop, in the fifth generation of the American founder of the family, filled the position of Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts. He married a daughter of Sir John Temple, the associate of Franklin in England, and a grand-daughter of Governor James Bowdoin. Thus honorably connected, in the direct and collaterai branches of the family tree, Robert Charles Winthrop was born in Boston, May 12, 1809. He was educated at the Boston Latin school, and once, as "a medal boy," received a set of books from the city authorities. He was graduated at Harvard in 1828. For the next three years he studied law with Daniel Webster. Being a man of fortune, with an inherited taste for public life, he chose employment in affairs of the state in preference to the more private pursuit of the law. He took a prominent part in military affairs as captain of the Boston Light Infantry and other civic stations of the kind. In 1834 he became a member of the Massachusetts State Legislature, and was speaker of its House of Representatives from 1838 till his election to Congress in 1840. Ante, vol. i. pp. 25-35. Roth & Winthrop . After seven years' service in the national House of Representatives he was chosen its speaker for the sessions of 1848-9. In 1850 he was appointed by the executive of Massachusetts to succeed Webster in the Senate, when the latter withdrew to the office of Secretary of State under President Fillmore. In 1851 he was a candidate for the office of Governor of Massachusetts, and received 65,000 votes, the two other candidates receiving about 40,000 and 30,000 respectively; but an absolute majority being required for an election by the people, he was defeated by a coalition of the minority parties in the legislature. Besides his political relations Mr. Winthrop is President of the Massachusetts Historical Society, of which his father was also President, and which he lately represented in 1854, delivering a speech of much ability at the semi-centennial anniversary of the New York Historical Society; a member of the American Antiquarian Society, and of other kindred institutions. The claims to literary distinction of Mr. Winthrop are through his Addresses and Orations. A series of these is strung along the whole course of his public life; all marked by their careful execution, literary propriety, and marked utility. They are easy, natural, finished performances, whether addressed to the State Legislature or the larger audience of national Representatives; whether in the popular political meeting, at an Agricultural, Scientific, or Historical Anniversary, or at the brilliant Public Dinner The prominent trait of the orator and rhetorician, as he shows himself on these occasions, is self-command; command of himself and of his subject. In person at once lithe and full-formed, tall and erect, he speaks with plenary, distinct tone, without the least effort. Each thought takes its appropriate place in his skilful method, which seems rather the result of a healthy physique of the mind than of art. In temper he is moderate, as his counsels in affairs of state have shown. This disposition is reflected in his discourses. The style has a tendency to expansion which might degenerate into weakness were it not relieved by the frequent points of a poetical or fanciful nature, at times of great ingenuity. The Congressional speeches of Mr. Winthrop, with others of a special character, are included in a volume of Addresses and Speeches on Various Occasions, published in 1852. It includes, besides his political efforts, his address on the laying the corner-stone of the national monument to Washington at the Seat of Government, July 4, 1848; his Maine Historical Society address on the life of James Bowdoin, and several educational and other themes. Since that volume was issued he has published his address before the association of the alumni of Harvard in 1852; a Lecture on Algernon Sidney before the Boston Mercantile Library Association in 1853; and in the same season his Lecture on Archimedes and Franklin, which gave the suggestion and impulse to the erection of a statue of Franklin in Boston.* PEACE BETWEEN ENGLAND AND AMERICA.† If it be a fit subject for reproach, to entertain the most anxious and ardent desire for the peace of this country, its peace with England, its peace with all the world, I submit myself willingly to the fullest measure of that reproach. War between the United States and Great Britain for Oregon! Sir, there is something in this idea too monstrous to be entertained for a moment. The two greatest nations on the globe, with more territorial possessions than they know what to do with already, and bound together by so many ties of kindred, and language, and commercial interest, going to war for a piece of barren earth! Why, it would put back the cause of civilization a whole century, and would be enough not merely to call down the rebuke of men, but the curse of God. I do not yield to the honorable gentleman in a just concern for the national honor. I am ready to maintain that honor, whenever it is really at stake, against Great Britain as readily as against any other nation. Indeed, if war is to come upon us, I am quite willing that it should be war with a firstrate power-with a foeman worthy of our steel. Oh! the blood more stirs, If the young Queen of England were the veritable Victoria whom the ancient poets have sometimes described as descending from the right hand of Jupiter to crown the banner of predestined Triumph, I would still not shrink from the attempt to vindicate the rights of my country on every proper occasion. To her forces, however, as well as to ours, may come the "cita mors," as well as the "Victoria læta." We have nothing to fear from a protracted war with any nation, though our want of preparation might give us the worst of it in the first encounter. We are all and always ready for war, when there is no other alternative for maintaining our country's honor. We are all and always ready for any war into which a Christian man, in a civilized land, and in this age of the world, can have the face to enter. But I thank God that there are very few such cases. War and honor are fast getting to have less and less to do with each other. The highest honor of any "Life and Public Services of R. C. Winthrop," American Review, March, 1848. Loring's Hundred Boston Orators. Wheeler's Biog. and Polit. Hist. of Congress, 1848, vol. i. + From a Speech in Congress, 1844. country is to preserve peace, even under provocations which might justify war. The deepest disgrace to any country is to plunge into war under circumstances which leave the honorable alternative of peace. I heartily hope and trust, Sir, that in deference to the sense of the civilized world, in deference to that spirit of Christianity which is now spreading its benign and healing influences over both hemispheres with such signal rapidity, we shall explore the whole field of diplomacy, and exhaust every art of negotiation, before we give loose to that passion for conflict which the honorable gentleman from Pennsylvania seems to regard as so grand and glorious an element of the American character. OBJECTS AND LIMITS OF SCIENCE.* There are fields enough for the wildest and most extravagant theorizings, within his own appropriate domain, without overleaping the barriers which separate things human and divine. Indeed, I have often thought that modern science had afforded a most opportune and providential safety-valve for the intellectual curiosity and ambition of man, at a moment when the progress of education, invention, and liberty, had roused and stimulated them to a pitch of such unprecedented eagerness and ardor. Astronomy, Chemistry, and more than all, Geology, with their incidental branches of study, have opened an inexhaustible field for investigation and speculation. Here, by the aid of modern instruments and modern modes of analysis, the most ardent and earnest spirits may find ample room and verge enough for their insatiate activity and audacious enterprise, and may pursue their course not only without the slightest danger of doing mischief to others, but with the certainty of promoting the great e. of scientific truth. Let them lift their vast reflectors or refractors to the skies, and detect new planets in their hidingplaces. Let them waylay the fugitive comets in their flight, and compel them to disclose the precise period of their orbits, and to give bonds for their punctual return. Let them drag out reluctant satellites from "their habitual concealments." Let them resolve the unresolvable nebulæ of Orion or Andromeda. They need not fear. The sky will not fall, nor a single star be shaken from its sphere. Let them perfect and elaborate their marvellous processes for making the light and the lightning their ministers, for putting "a pencil of rays" into the hand of art, and providing tongues of fire for the communication of intelligence. Let them foretell the path of the whirlwind and calculate the orbit of the storm. Let them hang out their gigantic pendulums, and make the earth do the work of describing and measuring her own motions. Let them annihilate human pain, and literally "charm ache with air, and agony with ether." The blessing of God will attend all their toils, and the gratitude of man will await all their triumphs. Let them dig down into the bowels of the earth. Let them rive asunder the massive rocks, and unfold the history of creation as it lies written on the pages of their piled up strata. Let them gather up the fossil fragments of a lost Fauna, reproducing the ancient forms which inhabited the land or the seas, bringing them together, bone to his bone, till Leviathan and Behemoth stand before us in bodily presence and in their full proportions, and we almost tremble lest these dry bones should live again! Let them put nature to the rack, and torture her, in all her forms, to the betrayal of her inmost secrets and confidences. They need not forbear. The founda * From an Address to the Alumni of Harvard University, 1852. tions of the round world have been laid so strong that they cannot be moved. But let them not think by searching to find out God. Let them not dream of understanding the Almighty to perfection. Let them not dare to apply their tests and solvents, their modes of analysis or their terms of definition, to the secrets of the spiritual kingdom. Let them spare the foundations of faith. Let them be satisfied with what is revealed of the mysteries of the Divine Nature. Let them not break through the bounds to gaze after the Invisible, lest the day come when they shall be ready to cry to the mountains, Fall on us, and to the hills, Cover us! VISIT OF CICERO TO THE GRAVE OF ARCHIMEDES,* While Cicero was quaestor in Sicily,—the first public office which he ever held, and the only one to which he was then eligible, being but just thirty years old, (for the Roman laws required for one of the humblest of the great offices of state the very same age which our American Constitution requires for one of the highest,)—he paid a visit to Syracuse, then among the greatest cities of the world." The magistrates of the city, of course, waited on him at once, to offer their services in showing him the lions of the place, and requested him to specify anything which he would like particularly to see. Doubtless, they supposed that he would ask immediately to be conducted to some one of their magnificent temples, that he might behold and admire those splendid works of art with which,-notwithstanding that Marcellus had made it his glory to carry not a few of them away with him for the decoration of the Imperial City, Syracuse still abounded, and which soon after tempted the cupi. dity, and fell a prey to the rapacity, of the infamous Verres. Or, haply, they may have thought that he would be curious to see and examine the ear of Dionysius, as it was called,-a huge cavern, cut out of the solid rock in the shape of a human ear, two hundred and fifty feet long and eighty feet high, in which that execrable tyrant confined all persons who came within the range of his suspicion, and which was so ingeniously contrived and constructed, that Dionysius, by applying his own ear to a small hole, where the sounds were collected as upon a tympa num, could catch every syllable that was uttered in the cavern below, and could deal out his proscription and his vengeance accordingly, upon all who might dare to dispute his authority, or to complain of his cruelty. Or they may have imagined perhaps, that he would be impatient to visit at once the sacred fountain of Arethusa, and the seat of those Sicilian Muses whom Virgil so soon after invoked in commencing that most inspired of all uninspired compositions, which Pope has so nobly paraphrased in his glowing and glorious Eclogue-the Messiah. To their great astonishment, however, Cicero's first request was, that they would take him to see the tomb of Archimedes. To his own still greater astonishment, as we may well believe, they told him in reply, that they knew nothing about the tomb of Archimedes, and had no idea where it was to be found, and they even positively denied that any such tomb was still remaining among them. But Cicero understood perfectly well what he was talking about. He remembered the exact description of the tomb. He remembered the very verses which had been inscribed on it. He remembered From the Lecture, "Archimedes and Franklin," November 29, 1858. |