But who will grieve, when to our eyes is given Life dawns in beauty on the gloomy past. Till the dread trump its warning note shall sound. But life's delights are still a weakness found, As rainbows glow not in the clear blue sky, And he to paltry things is meanly bound M. R. 275 THE EDITOR'S TABLE. THERE are few things of a more miscellaneous character than an Editor's table. Not to speak of the necessarily universal nature of his own productions, there is a periodical renewal of variety spread before him to which nothing but the Ark of the deluge will afford any fitting analogy. The liberal principles on which literary notices are conducted in our country, make it a profitable courtesy to our good friends, the booksellers, to send us the copies of their new publications-the only price paid for a criticism, which, brief though it be, makes the reading world aware at least of their existence, and, we flatter ourselves, sometimes of their value. At the summons of that indefinite personage, therefore, whose prototype, like himself, too often comes for the "last article" we array before us our tributes for the month, and ponder over their freshly lettered backs till we re-conjure the reflections which occurred to us while reading them or, if we have not yet inserted our folder between the leaves, draw from the character of the author, or the brief but polite note of the bibliopole, some safe and general conclusion with regard to their merits. This last part of our conjunctive, we regret to say, is oftener true, though we shall be excused when the reader remembers that the majority of books sent us are any thing but adapted to our "vein," or attractive even to that faint propensity of our nature which unites the "useful with the agreeable," (we translate the phrase lest we should be said to smell of our Latin grammar.) Not that we feel bound to say something of them all— much less to say always that which is favorable. There comes to us now and then a volume of which our acquisitions do not enable us to judge-a Hebrew Grammar perhaps, or a Treatise upon Callisthenics or the last speech of orator Emmons—and, now and then, a volume of poetry by some timid fledgling of an author which we pass over in silence rather than look coldly on-remembering our own sometime sensitiveness and the encouraging kindness with which we were treated by the body of which we are now an unworthy member. Occasionally, too, we are required to give an opinion upon a work, of which, however we may form a judgment in our individual capacity, we cannot, though we make small pretension to modesty, feel ourselves a fitting critic in the public eye. We dare not sit down, for example, to find fault with Scott and Goethe and Irving, on the strength of our own untried judgment. We do not like to say (though we have been driven to such daring of late) that Wordsworth is our "magnus Apollo," and Bryant and Dana the princes of American poetry. We are a little delicate about writing our admiration out in full of Mrs. Sigourney and the authoress of Hobomok, and upon the general merits of American literature we have not the courage to face, as we gladly would the formidable array of evil speaking and croaking seers. Our opinion upon these subjects, particularly upon contemporaneous poetry, would clash loudly with that of our elders, and difficult though it be, we have not been so seldom warned of presumption that we feel at liberty to break a lance with such formidable antagonists. We console ourselves with reading anew the "Dying Raven" of Dana, and the "Coral Insect" of Mrs. Sigourney, and the limpid and wild beauties of Percival, reflecting the while, that if the thrill which they send through our bosom as we read is a false impulse, and the neglect they experience in criticism be merited, we shall by and by arrive at the true standard, which is, we confess, if this be it, a most distant consummation. But we have rambled away from our subject with the influence of this most restless of months upon us, and like a tied bird we must obey our string, and remember the peg to which we are fastened. We were speaking of books. First under our hand lies Mr. Leggett's TALES OF A COUNTRY SCHOOLMASTER. If it lay within the bounds of criticism we would object to the title of this book. The scenes are quite too stirring, and the nautical narrations especially are told with too technical an air to be the production of so gentle a craft as schoolkeeping. Without staying to dispute upon this, however, as an author has an undoubted right to be arbitrary in such matters, we pass on to the tales themselves. Mr. Leggett writes a free, rambling style, telling his story right on without any apparent effort, and telling it well. There is much more freshness in the invention of his plot than in the cast of his periods. The "Rifle," with which every one is familiar, "Near Sighted," a story of much interest, and one or two others, are very finely contrived, and shew proportion and judgment. We take an extract from the commencement of the "Watch in the Maintop" as affording a fair specimen of his manner. "When I was a reefer, I once had the evil fortune to sail under the command of a captain, who, in nautical technicals, was very justly termed the hardest horse in the navy; or, in other words, with a tyrannical ignoramus, by the name of Crayton, who I sincerely believe was cordially hated, by all who did not despise him too much to allow of the former feeling. Among other vexatious means which he devised for the purpose of annoying his officers, was that of having a regular sea-watch of midshipmen, night and day, in the tops, of which there was about as much need, in those piping times of peace, as there is for a ringtail in a gale of wind. It happened on one clear moonlight night, when we had a spanking wind on the quarter, and were cutting along through the blue sea, with as much sail set as we could cleverly stagger under, going at the rate of about nine, two, that it was my turn, when the mid-watch was called, to take the main-top. This was no very disagreeable place, after all, when the weather was pleasant, and the wind steady; for (be it spoken in a whisper) we would sometimes on such occasions, so far infringe upon our military duty as to stow ourselves snugly away, in a coil of rigging, and snooze out an hour or two of the long and solitary watch. For my own part, I had done this so often that the timidity and caution at first attendant upon any deviation from discipline had gradually worn off; and it at last became so customary, that as soon as I had got my head above the rim of the top, I was casting my eyes about to see which coil of rigging lay the snuggest for my bunk. "On the occasion to which I now particularly refer, however, I did not feel disposed to sleep. Knowing that I would have the mid-watch to keep, and not feeling very well, I had retired to my hammock at about seven bells in the evening, and by the time that the lights were doused at eight o'clock, had fallen into a sweet and refreshing slumber. The noise on deck of their taking in studding. sails, when the wind freshened, did not waken me, and by the time that the first watch was out, and an officer sent down, to call the relief, I was so completely renovated by my sound and uninterrupted repose, that I had no disposition to renew my slumber. When I got into the top, I took my seat on a coil of rigging where I could lean back against the fancy-lines, and throwing my arm over the toprail, I was soon lost in contemplation of the beautiful scene. "I believe I said before that it was bright moonlight. As far as the eye could reach, not a sail was in sight: but on every side around us stretched the blue, interminable waves, till they met, and seemed to mingle with the heavens. The sky above was gemmed with many a star; and large bodies of fleecy clouds every now and then drove across them, for a few moments casting a deep shade over the ocean, which, as the moon again emerged, seemed, to a fanciful view, to dance and sparkle with joy for the recovered radiance. As soon as the watch was all mustered, the boatswain's mate was ordered "to pipe down," or, in other words, to blow that peculiar note on his whistle which signified to the poor fellows who had been on deck from eight o'clock, that they might now seek their hammocks, and snatch a short repose, before they should again be summoned to their wearisome duty. "The noise of the retiring crew soon subsided; the hail of the lieutenant who had just taken the deck, to each of the stations where look-outs had been appointed, bidding them keep a bright look-out, had been made and answered; and the watch-forecastle-men, waisters and after-guard-had all quietly snuggled down under the weather bulwarks, before the quarter-master reported one bell. The maintop-men were not slow, in perceiving that I was more wakeful than usual, VOL. I.-NO. IV. 36 and instead of stretching themselves out to sleep, huddled together in a corner of the top, and began to amuse themselves by telling stories-or, in their own phrase, by spinning yarns. Jack Gunn, the captain of the starboard watch of maintopmen, was the first called on, and with true sailor alacrity he immediately complied. There never was, from the time of the Argo, down to the frigate now on the stocks at the navy-yard, a more thorough man-of-war's-man than that same Jack Gunn. He had sailed in all kinds of crafts, from a Dutch lugger to a Yankee Line-of-battle ship; he had fought under the flags of all nations, and it was even surmised, from occasional words, that he would accidentally let fall, that he had handled a sabre under the blood-red standard of piracy. Whether this was so or not, he made no secret of his having been often engaged in desperate adventures on board of smuggling craft; and the number of suspicious looking Frenchmen who recognised Jack, when the cutter to which he belonged, was sometimes sent ashore while we were lying at Cherbourg, bore no very favorable testimony in relation to his former pursuits. Yet for all his recklessness of character, and for all the many unwarrantable enterprises in which he had been engaged, Jack was a good fellow. His vices were those which resulted from ignorance and thoughtlessness; his virtues were the warm impulses of a naturally excellent heart, which, properly matured and cultivated, would have made him an ornament to his profession and his species. I do not believe, for all the many scenes of blood and rapacity which he must have witnessed, and in which he most likely took a large part, that Jack ever did a deliberately cruel action in his life. As a sailor, he had but few equals, and no superior in our ship. He did not eat, drink, nor sleep, like other men; but was always ready, whatever he might be about, to spring on deck, and lend an active hand in anything that it might be requisite to do. If a squall struck us in the mid-watch, and it was Jack's watch in at the time, it made no difference; the surge of the ship and her heeling were sure to wake him, and the first thing you would know, there he would be, out on the weather yard-arm, before the quarter-deck midshipman had got half way to the fore cockpit to tell the boatswain to call all hands." pp. 204-208. Mr. Leggett has recently abandoned the "Critic," a periodical which he conducted with singular industry and ability, and, we believe, has started as professional author. The enterprise is honorable to him, and we believe it by no means impossible to live by the profession. We are glad to see the growing confidence in the disposition of the public to encourage literary effort, and we are assured that as a general thing, no productive talent will in the present period, go unrewarded. We wish our author every success both for his own sake and for our own reputation as a literary people. "GEBEL TEIR, or the Mountain of Birds" is a singular book, containing under a pleasantly told fable of a delegation of birds from every country to a general assembly, a series of shrewd observations upon the politics and condition of the prominent nations of the world. The manner of the writer is extremely graceful and chaste, as will be seen by the following extract from the commencement. "The feathered delegates had already carolled their morning hymns with the returning light, and were winging their way on all sides to the Mountain of Gebel Teir, on whose ancient rocks as they stooped their flight, in a thousand varieties of motion and figure, the wondering Arab might indeed have supposed, that all the birds of the universe had congregated. This animating picture was however reserved to only here and there an insulated seer, who possessed the faculty of second sight; to the ordinary race of mortals who only discern at first view, the spectacle was wholly invisible, and in the usual course of ignorant incredulity wholly distrusted. Glorious indeed is the privilege of beholding this reunion! The rapid rush of the wild pigeon, the skimming gyration of the swallow, the majestic cowering of the eagle, the heavy flapping of the raven, and the flickering velocity of the humming bird, all were blended in seeming confusion, yet unerring order. The gleams of nature's most brilliant colors, the mingling, crossing, fleeting shadows of the great and the little, chequered the earth, and reflected or obscured the sunbeams as the crowds settled down on their accustomed perches, to compose their wings in graceful foldings, and recover from the panting flutter of their morning excursion. "The last of the delegates were just taking their places, when the senior President gradually descended to occupy his station. A vast Roc held this office by perpetual choice, and as he poised majestically to his place, his outspread form threw a shadow like that of a passing cloud over the assembly. Once alighted on his feet, his still extended wings could only be compared to the wide spread of canvass, bearing before the wind a huge ship of war with steering sails on either side. The wings however, that suspended his ample body in the fields of ether, were in a moment folded, and he stood an imposing President, with a dignity of size and majesty of power, that would cause the proudest chancellor in the most voluminous wig and cumbersome robes, to dwindle to a sparrow in comparison." pp. 14, 15. Af After listening to accounts, from native birds, of the United States, Spain, Turkey and Greece, England and France, the assembly are astonished by the entrance of a bird, "whose appearance was sudden and whose coming was noiseless and unseen." This is the Egyptian Ibis, come to make his annual return from the shades below." ter some account of himself, the mysterious visitant proceeds thus :— "To instruct and incite the younger members here present, I will mention a few of the sights that gladden the eye in the Elysian fields, where birds who have shown themselves faithful in their duties, vigilant sentinels when stationed on that service, valiant defenders of their nests and careful providers for their young, enjoy the unceasing delights of Elysium, on a wing that never tires. They are there secure from attack and from suffering, in a blissful region, where peace forever dwells, and violence or want can never enter. "In these abodes of ever-during felicity a deep harmony and universal participation increase the charm of every delight. Among the varieties of ethereal enjoyment it is one to see the tenants of Elysium attended by the semblances of all those creations of their genius which ennobled their existence in this world. It is one of the rewards allotted to them that these embodied shadows shall there follow them; and the pleasure is mutual, as each purified from envy and all earthly passion, enjoys the creation of others, as well as his own. There the Grecian poets and artists, are accompanied by the classic designs they invented. Homer is followed by Achilles, Nestor, Ulysses, Ajax, and a crowd of others. Sophocles and Euripides are attended by Clytemnestra, Iphigenia, Orestes, Jason, &c. The clouds and birds hover over Aristophanes. The sculptors have for companions their Apollo, Venus and the Graces; and the painters their representations, even to the grapes that deceived the birds, and the curtain that deceived the artist. Virgil sees Eneas, Creusa, and Ascanius, Dido, Nisus and Euryalus, and all his heroic and pastoral characters. Raphael is surrounded with the beautiful mothers and children, he painted for Catholic worship, and Michael Angelo here compares that awful scene which he spread on the walls of the Sistine Chapel, with the reality that exists around him. Petrarch sees his laurel covered with sonnets to Laura, who sits beneath its shade. Dante with Beatrice here realizes the scenes he tried to discover in this world; Ariosto has his wild gay imaginations of ladies, magicians and knights to recreate his fancy. Cervantes is accompanied by Don Quixote, Sancho, and all the characters of his brilliant genius. Rabelais has Panurge and his grotesque |