Mr. Brown was also the author of Constance, Virginia, Julia of Baia, and a few other prose tales of a religious character for young readers. THE CHRISTMAS BELLS. The bells the bells-the Christmas bells The silvery tones, o'er vale and hill, The bells the merry Christmas bells, They ring, as sunshine tips the hills, When, through the sky, the sovereign sun The Christmas bells--the Christmas bells, How merrily they ring! To weary hearts a pulse of joy, A kindlier life they bring. The poor man on his couch of straw, Hail the glad sounds, as voices sweet The bells the silvery Christmas bells, JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, A MEMBER of a Boston family, and graduate of Harvard of 1831, is the author of two novels of merit, Morton's Hope, or The Memoirs of a Provincial, and Merry Mount, a Romance of the Massachusetts Colony. The first of these fictions appeared in 1839. The scene of the opening portion is laid at Morton's Hope, a quiet provincial country-seat in the neighborhood of Boston. In consequence of disappointment in a love affair, the hero leaves his country and passes some time among the German University towns, the manners of which are introduced with effect. Towards the middle of the second volume, he is summoned home by the news of the death of his uncle, and a hint from a relative that the fortune which this event places in his hands can be better employed in the service of his country, now engaged in the struggle of the Revolution, than in an aimless foreign residence. He returns home, becomes an officer in the Continental army, distinguishes himself, and regains his lost mistress. In Merry Mount the author has availed himself of the picturesque episode of New England history presented in the old narrative of Thomas Morton, of which we have previously given an account.* Both of these fictions are written with spirit; the descriptions, which are frequent, are carefully elaborated; and the narrative is enlivened with frequent flashes of genuine humor. Mr. Motley is at present residing at Dresden, where he has been some time engaged in writing a History of Holland, which will no doubt prove a work of high merit, as an animated and vigorous portraiture of the Dutch struggle of independence. GOTTINGEN-FROM MORTON'S HOPE. Gottingen is rather a well-built and handsome looking town, with a decided look of the Middle Ages about it. Although the college is new, the town is ancient, and like the rest of the German University towns, has nothing external, with the exception of a plain-looking building in brick for the library and one or two others for natural collections, to remind you that you are at the seat of an institution for education. The professors lecture, each on his own account, at his own house, of which the basement floor is generally made use of as an auditorium. The town is walled in, like most of the continental cities of that date, although the ramparts, planted with linden-trees, have since been converted into a pleasant promenade, which reaches quite round the town, and is furnished with a gate and guard at the end of each principal avenue. It is this careful fortification, combined with the nine-story houses, and the narrow streets, which imparts the compact, secure look peculiar to all the German towns. The effect is forcibly to remind you of the days when the inhabitants were huddled snugly together, like sheep in a sheep-cote, and locked up safe from the wolfish attacks of the gentlemen highwaymen, the ruins of whose castles frown down from the neighbouring hills. The houses are generally tall and gaunt, consisting of a skeleton of frame-work, filled in with brick, with the original rafters, embrowned by time, projecting like ribs through the yellowish stucco which covers the surface. They are full of little windows, which are filled with little panes, and as they are built to save room, one upon another, and consequently rise generally to eight or nine stories, the inhabitants invariably live as it were in layers. Hence it is not uncommon to find a professor occupying the two lower stories or strata, a tailor above the professor, a student upon the tailor, a beer-seller conveniently upon the student, a washerwoman upon the beer-merchant, and perhaps a poet upon the top; a pyramid with a poet for its apex, and a professor for the base. The solid and permanent look of all these edifices, in which, from the composite and varying style of architecture, you might read the history of half a dozen centuries in a single house, and which looked as if built before the memory of man, and like to last for ever, reminded me, by the association of contrast, of the straggling towns and villages of America, where the houses are wooden boxes, worn out and renewed every fifty years; where the cities seem only temporary encampments, and where, till people learn to build for the future as well as the present, there will be no history, except in pen and ink, of the changing centuries in the country. As I passed up the street, I saw on the lower story of a sombre-looking house, the whole legend of Samson and Delilah rudely carved in the brown freestone, which formed the abutments of the house op • Ante, vol. 1. p. 28. posite; a fantastic sign over a portentous shop with an awning ostentatiously extended over the sidewalk, announced the café and ice-shop: overhead, from the gutters of each of the red-tiled roofs, were thrust into mid-air the grim heads of dragons with long twisted necks, portentous teeth, and goggle eyes, serving, as I learned the first rainy day, the peaceful purpose of a water spout; while on the side-walks, and at every turn, I saw enough to convince me I was in an university town, although there were none of the usual architectural indications. As we passed the old gothic church of St. Nicholas, I observed through the open windows of the next house, a party of students smoking and playing billiards, and I recognised some of the faces of my Leipzig acquaintance. In the street were 66 plenty of others of all varieties. Some, with plain caps and clothes, and a meek demeanour, sneaked quietly through the streets, with portfolios under their arms. I observed the care with which they turned out to the left, and avoided collision with every one they met. These were camels or studious students" returning from lecture-others swag gered along the side-walk, turning out for no one, with clubs in their hands, and bull-dogs at their heels-these were dressed in marvellously fine caps and polonaise coats, covered with cords and tassels, and invariably had pipes in their mouths, and were fitted out with the proper allowance of spurs and moustachios. These were "Renomists," who were always ready for a row. At almost every corner of the street was to be seen a solitary individual of this latter class, in a ferocious fencing attitude, brandishing his club in the air, and cutting carto and tierce in the most alarming manner, till you were reminded of the truculent Gregory's advice to his companion: "Remember thy swashing blow." All along the street, I saw, on looking up, the heads and shoulders of students projecting from every window. They were arrayed in tawdry smoking caps and heterogeneous-looking dressing gowns, with the long pipes and flash tassels depending from their mouths. At his master's side, and looking out of the same window, I observed, in many instances, a grave and philosophical-looking poodle, with equally grim moustachios, his head reposing contemplatively on his fore-paws, and engaged apparently, like his master, in ogling the ponderous housemaids who were drawing water from the street pumps. We passed through the market square, with its antique fountain in the midst,and filled with an admirable collection of old women, some washing clothes, and some selling cherries, and turned at last into the Nagler Strasse. This was a narrow street, with tall rickety houses of various shapes and sizes, arranged on each side, in irregular rows; while the gaunt gable-ended edifices, sidling up to each other in one place till the opposite side nearly touched, and at another retreating awkwardly back as if ashamed to show their faces, gave to the whole much the appearance of a country dance by unskilful performers. Suddenly the postillion drove into a dark, yawning doorway, which gaped into the street like a dragon's mouth, and drew up at the door-step of the King of Prussia." The house bell jingledthe dogs barked-two waiters let down the steps, a third seized us by the legs, and nearly pulled us out of the carriage in the excess of their officiousness; while the landlord made his appearance cap in hand on the threshold, and after saluting us in Latin, Polish, French, and English, at last informed us in We paid our "brother-in-law," as you must always call the postillion in Germany, a magnificent drinkgeld, and then ordered dinner. SAMUEL A. HAMMETT. MR. HAMMETT was born in 1816 at Jewett City, Connecticut. After being graduated at the University of the City of New York, he passed some ten or twelve years in the South-west, engaged in mercantile pursuits, and for a portion of the time as Clerk of the District Court of Montgomery county, Texas. In 1848 he removed to New York, where he has since resided. Mr. Hammett has drawn largely on his frontier experiences in his contributions to the Spirit of the Times, Knickerbocker, Democratic and Whig Reviews, and Literary World. He has published two volumes-A Stray Yankee in Texas, and The Wonderful Adventures of Captain Priest, with the scene Down East. They are sketchy, humorous, and inventive. HOW I CAUGHT A CAT, AND WHAT I DID WITH IT-FROM A STRAY YANKEE IN TEXAS. At last behold us fairly located upon the banks of the river, where Joe had selected a fine, hard shingle beach upon which to pitch our camp. This same camp was an extemporaneous affair, a kind of al fresco home, formed by setting up a few crotches to sustain a rude roof of undressed shingles, manufactured impromptu,-there known as "boards," supported upon diminutive rafters of cane. 66 This done, a cypress suitable for a canoe, or dug out," was selected, and in two days shaped, hollowed out, and launched. Fairly embarked now in the business, I found but little difficulty in obtaining a supply of green trout and other kinds of river fish, but the huge "Cats"-where were they! I fished at early morn and dewy eve, ere the light had faded out from the stars of morning, and after dame Nature had donned her robe de nuit,-all was in vain. Joe counselled patience, and hinted that the larger species of Cats" never ran but during a rise or fall in the river, and must then be fished for at night. One morning, heavy clouds in the north, and the sound of distant thunder, informed us that a storm was in progress near the head waters of our stream. My rude tackle was looked after, and bait prepared in anticipation of the promised fish, which the perturbed waters of the river were to incite to motion. Night came, and I left for a spot where I knew the Cats must frequent; a deep dark hole, imme diately above a sedgy flat. My patience and perseverance at length met with their reward. I felt something very carefully examining the bait, and at last tired of waiting for the bite, struck with force. I had him, a huge fellow, too; backwards and forwards he dashed, up and down, in and out. No fancy tackle was mine, but plain and trustworthy, at least so I fondly imagined. At last I trailed the gentleman upon the sedge, and was upon the eve of wading in and securing him, when a splash in the water which threw it in every direction, announced that something new had turned up, and away went I, hook, and line, into the black hole below. At this moment my tackle part. ed, the robber-whether alligator or gar I knew not plain German, which was the only language he real-disappeared with my half captured prey, and I ly knew, that he was very glad to have the honour of "recommending himself to us." crawled out upon the bank in a blessed humor. My fishing was finished for the evening; but repairing the tackle as best I could, casting the line again into the pool, and fixing the pole firmly in the knot-hole of a fallen tree, I abandoned it, to fish upon its own hook. When I arose in the morning, a cold "norther" was blowing fiercely, and the river had risen in the world during the night. The log to which my pole had formed a temporary attachment, had taken its departure for parts unknown, and was in all human probability at that moment engaged in making an experimental voyage on account of "whom it may concern." The keen eyes of Joe, who had been peering up and down the river, however, discovered something upon the opposite side that bore a strong resemblance to the missing pole, and when the sun had fairly risen, we found that there it surely was, and moreover its bowing to the water's edge, and subsequent straightening up, gave proof that a fish was fast to the line. The northern blast blew shrill and cold, and the ordinarily gentle current of the river was now a mad torrent, lashing the banks in its fury, and foaming over the rocks and trees that obstructed its increased volume. Joe and I looked despairingly at each other, and shook our heads in silence and in sorrow. Yet there was the pole waving to and fro, at times when the fish would repeat his efforts to escape-it was worse than the Cup of Tantalus, and after bearing it as long as I could, I prepared for a plunge into the maddened stream. One plunge, however, quite satisfied me; I was thrown back upon the shore, cold and dispirited. During the entire day there stood, or swung to and fro, the wretched pole, now upright as an or derly sergeant, now bending down and kissing the waters at its feet. The sight I bore until flesh and blood could no more endure. The sun had sunk to rest, the twilight was fading away, and the stars were beginning to peep out from their sheltering places inquiringly, as if to know why the night came not on, when I, stung to the soul, determined at any hazard to dare the venture. Wringing the hand of Joe, who shook his head dubiously, up the stream I bent my course until I reached a point some distance above, from which the current passing dashed with violence against the bank, and shot directly over to the very spot where waved and wagged my wretched rod, cribbe 1 by the waters, and cabined and coufiued among the logs. I plunged in, and swift as an arrow from the bow, the water hurried me on, a companion to its mad career. The point was almost gained, when a shout from Joe called my attention to the pole: alas, the fish was gone, and the line was streaming out in the fierce wind. That night was I avenged; a huge cat was borne home in triumph. How I took it, or where, it matters not; for so much time having been occupied in narrating how I did not, I can spare no more to tell how I did. The next point was to decide as to the cooking of him. Joe advised a barbacue; "a fine fellow like that," he said, "with two inches of clear fat upon his back-bone, would make a noble feast." Let not the two inches of clear fat startle the incredulous render; for in that country of lean swine, I have often heard that the catfish are used to fry bacon He would not be cooked, and was in fact much worse, and not half so honest as a worthy old gander -once purchased by a very innocent friend of mine -that was found to contain in its maw a paper embracing both his genealogy and directions with reference to the advisable mode of preparing him for the table; of which all that I remember is, that parboiling for sixteen days was warmly recommended as an initial step. Sixteen days' parboiling I am convinced would but have rendered our friend the tougher. We tried him over a hot fire, and a slow one,-we smoked him, singed him, and in fine tried all known methods in vain, and finally consigned him again, uneaten, to the waters. CORNELIUS MATHEWS. CORNELIUS MATHEWS was born October 28, 1817, in the village of Port Chester, in Westchester county, State of New York. It is a spot situated on the Sound, on the borders of Connecticut, and was, until recently, before modern taste had altered the name, designated Saw-pitts, from the branch of industry originally pursued there. The early country life of Mr. Mathews in Westchester, on the banks of Byram river, or by the rolling uplands of Rye and its picturesque lake, is traceable through many a page of his writings, in fanciful descriptions of nature based upon genuine experience, and in frequent traits of the rural personages who filled the scene. Mr. Mathews was among the early graduates of the New York University, an association which he revived some years afterwards, by an address on Americanism, before one of the societies. His literary career began early. For the American Monthly Magazine of 1836, he wrote both in verse and prose. A series of poetical commemorations of incidents of the Revolution entitled, Our Forefathers, in this journal, are from his pen, with the animated critical sketches of Jeremy Taylor and Owen Felltham, among some revivals of the old English prose writers. In the New York Review for 1837 he wrote a paper, The Ethics of Eating, a satiric sketch of the ultra efforts at dietetic reform then introduced to the public. He was also a contributor to the Knickerbocker Magazine of humorous sketches. In the Motley Book in 1838, a collection of tales and sketches, he gave further evidence of his capacity for pathos and humor in description. It was followed the next year by Behemoth, a Legend of the Moundbuilders, an imaginative romance, in which the physical sublime was embodied in the great mastodon, the action of the story consisting in the efforts of a supposed ante-Indian race to overcome the huge monster. This "fossil romance" was a purely original invention, with very slender materials in the books of Priest, Atwater, and others; but such hints as the author procured from these and similar sources, were more than repaid in the genial notes which accompanied the first edition. In 1840 his sketch of New York city electioneering life, The Politicians, a comedy, appeared; the subject matter of which was followed up in The Career of Puffer Hopkins in 1841, a novel which embodies many phases of civic political life, which have rapidly passed away. Both the play and the tale were the precursors of many similar attempts in local fiction and description. Germans call the ruling impulse of a work) in the production of tragic interest; no less original is the attempt, and delightful the success, in making an aged woman a satisfactory heroine to the piece through the greatness of her soul, and the magnetic influence it exerts on all around her, till the ignorant and superstitious fancy that the sky darkens and the winds wait upon her as she walks on the lonely hill-side near her hut to commune with the Past, and seek instruction from Heaven. The working of her character on the other agents of the piece is depicted with force and nobleness. The deep love of her son for her, the little tender, simple ways in which he shows it, having preserved the purity and poetic spirit of childhood by never having been weaned from his first love, a mother's love, the anguish of his soul when he too becomes infected with distrust, and cannot discriminate the natural magnetism of a strong nature from the spells and lures of sorcery, the final triumph of his faith, all offered the highest scope to genius and the power of There are highly Aimeline Mathew moral perception in the actor. At this time, from December, 1840, to May, 1842, Mr. Mathews was engaged in the editorship of Arcturus, a Journal of Books and Opinion, a monthly magazine, of which three volumes appeared; and in which he wrote numerous papers, fanciful and critical, including the novel just mentioned. In 1843 he published Poems on Man in the Republic, in which, with much vigor of thought, he passes in review the chief family, social, and political relations of the citizen. His Big Abel and the Little Manhattan, a "fantasy piece," is a picture of New York, sketched in a poetical spirit, with the contrast of the native original Indian element with the present developments of civilization; personated respectively by an Indian, and a representative of the first Dutch settlers. In 1846 Mr. Murdoch brought upon the stage at Philadelphia Mr. Mathews's tragedy of Witchcraft, a story of the old Salem delusion, true to the weird and quaint influences of the time. The suspected mother in the piece, Ambla Bodish, is an original character well sustained. The play was successful on the stage. Mr. Murdoch also performed in it at Cincinnati, where it was received with enthusiasm. A second play, Jacob Leisler, founded on a passage of New York colonial history, was also first performed at Philadelphia in 1848, and subsequently with success in New York and elsewhere. One of the difficulties Witchcraft had to contend with on the representation, was the age of the heroine. An actress could scarcely be found who would sacrifice the personal admiration of the hour to the interest of the powerful and truthful dramatic delineation in the mother, grey with sorrow and time. As a contemporary testimony to the merits of the play in poetic conception and character, we may quote the remarks by the late Margaret Fuller, published in her Papers on Literature and Art. "Witchcraft is a work of strong and majestic lineaments; a fine originality is shown in the conception, by which the love of a son for a mother is made a sufficient motiv (as the poetic intimations of those lowering days with their veiled skies, brassy light, and sadly whispering winds, very common in Massachusetts, so ominous and brooding seen from any point, but from the idea of witchcraft invested with an awful significance. We do not know, however, that this could bring it beyond what it has appeared to our own sane mind, as if the air was thick with spirits, in an equivocal and surely sad condition, whether of purgatory or downfall; and the air was vocal with all manner of dark intimations. We are glad to see this mood of nature so fitly characterized. The sweetness and nairete with which the young girl is made to describe the effects of love upon her, as supposing them to proceed from a spell, are also original, and there is no other way in which this revelation could have been induced that would not have injured the beauty of the character and position. Her visionary sense of her lover, as an ideal figure, is of a high order of poetry, and these facts have very seldom been brought out from the cloisters of the mind into the light of open day." Moneypenny, or the Heart of the World, a Romance of the Present Times, a novel of contrasted country and city life, was published in 1850, and in the same year Chanticleer, a Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family, an idyllic tale of a purely American character. A Pen and Ink Panorama of New York City, is a little volume in which the author has gathered up his contributions to the journals of the day, a series of fanciful and picturesque sketches, chiefly illustrative of a favorite topic in his writings. Besides these works, Mr. Mathews has been a constant writer in the journalism of the day, frequently in the Literary World of critical articles and sketches, and on social and other topics in the daily press of New York. He is also prominently identified with the discussion of the Internstional Copyright Question, a subject which he has illustrated in his Address of the Copyright Club to the American People, and other writings, with ingenuity and felicity. A characteristic of Mr. Mathews's writings is their originality. He has chosen new subjects, and treated them in a way of his own, never without energy and spirit. A collected edition of Mr. Mathews's writings has been published from the press of the Harpers. A second edition of the Poems on Man was published in 1846. An edition of Chanticleer has been published by Redfield. THE JOURNALIST. As shakes the canvass of a thousand ships, From him who strikes, who rules, who speaks, who sings; Many within the hour their grave to make— A dark-dyed spirit he who coins the time, Who makes the morning's breath, the evening's tide, The utterer of his blighting forgeries. How beautiful who scatters, wide and free, The gold-bright seeds of loved and loving truth! Its passing lights of joy, its dark, sad cloud, Fit to be chronicled at large and told- Demands a message cautious as the ages- Thou grimy man over thine engine bending; The spirit pent that breathes the life into its limbs, Docile for love is tyrannous in rending. Obey, Rhinoceros! an infant's hand, Leviathan! obey the fisher mild and young, Vexed Ocean! smile, for on thy broad-beat sand The little curlew pipes his shrilly song. THE POOR MAN. Free paths and open tracts about us lie, An angel knock the fetters from his frame. The patient Triumph that beside him walks Waiting the hour, to earnest labor set, When, face to face, his merrier Fortune talks. Plant in thy breast a measureless content, Thou poor man, cramped with want or racked with pain, Good Providence, on no harsh purpose bent, Has brought thee there, to lead thee back again. We think one of the rarest spectacles in the world must be (what is called) a Graham boarding-house at about the dinner-hour. Along a table, from which, perhaps, the too elegant and gorgeous luxury of a cloth is discarded, (for we have never enjoyed the felicity of an actual vision of this kind,) seated some thirty lean-visaged, cadaverous disciples, eyeing each other askance-their looks lit up with a certain cannibal spirit, which, if there were any chance of making a full meal off each other's bones, might perhaps break into dangerous practice. The gentlemen resemble busts cut in chalk or white flint; the lady-boarders (they will pardon the allusion) mummies preserved in saffron. At the left hand of each stands a small tankard or pint tumbler of cold water, or, perchance, a decoction of hot water with a little milk and sugar-" a harmless and salutary beverage;"—at the right, a thin segment of bran-bread. Stretched on a plate in the centre lie, melancholy twins! a pair of starveling mackerel, flanked on either side by three or four straggling radishes, and kept in countenance by a sorry bunch of asparagus served up without sauce. The van of the table is led by a hollow dish with a dozen potatoes, rather corpses of potatoes, in a row, lying at the bottom. 66 At those tables look for no conversation, or for conversation of the driest and dullest sort. Small wit is begotten off spare viands. They, however, think otherwise. Vegetable food tends to preserve a delicacy of feeling, a liveliness of imagination, and acuteness of judgment seldom enjoyed by those who live principally on meat." Green peas, cabbage, and spinach are enrolled in a new catalogue. They are no longer culinary and botanical. They take rank above that. They are become metaphysical, and have a rare operation that way; they "tend to preserve a delicacy of feeling," &c. Cauliflower is a power of the mind; and asparagus, done tenderly, is nothing less than a mental faculty of the first order. "Buttered parsnips" are, no doubt, a great help in education; and a course of vegetables, we presume, is to be substituted at college in the place of the old routine of Greek and Latin classics. The student will be henceforth pushed forward through his academic studies by rapid stages of Lima beans, parsley, and tomato. There is a class of sciolists, who believe that all kinds of experiments are to be ventured upon the human constitution: that it is to be hoisted by pulleys and depressed by weights: pushed forward by rotary principles, and pulled back by stop-springs and regulators. They have finally succeeded in looking upon the human frame, much as a neighboring alliance of stronger powers regard a petty state which is doing well in the world and is ambitious of rising in it. It must be kept under. It must be fettered by treaties and protocols without number. This river it must not cross: at the foot of that mountain it must pause. An attempt to include yonder forest in its territories, would awaken the wrath of its powerful superiors, and they would crush it |