tionary, which made him, now reposes on many shelves, as mere dead lumber; and even our scholars seem to delight in demonstrating his etymological ignorances! Who, of this nineteenth century, now reads the Rambler-not one in ten thousand! Who, as in former days, now with delight pore over his truly admirable Lives of the Poets? Not one, in as may hundred-his poetry one here and therehos Miscellaneous Works? scarce any! And so of When Pope, Bolingbroke, Goldsmith, with the exeentare of his Vicar of Wakefield; and Hume, likewise, excepting his History of England. Who now mals Spenser-Chaucer-Ben Jonson-Davenant Gm-en-Verell—Daniel-Cartwright-HurdisChambergere—Sir Philip Sidney-Sir John Suckang, or even the best among the early English dramade writers few, very few! And, may we not with truth ask, are not the plays, even of the immortal bard of Avon, comparatively but little read, and still less often enacted; and have they not recently sought more genial realms, and become more familiar to German, than even to English ears? Well hath Spenser exclaimed— How many great ones may remembered be, GULIAN C. VERPLANCK, GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK, a name which in itself indicated its owner's descent from the founders of the Empire State, was. born in the city of New York. He was one of the class of 1801, of Columbia College, and afterwards devoted himself to the law. After being admitted to the Bar, Mr. Verplanck passed several years in Europe. On his return, he became interested in politics, and was elected a member of the State Legislature. In 1818 he delivered the first of the series of public addresses on which his literary reputation is mainly founded. In this discourse, pronounced on the anniversary of the New York Historical Society, after lamenting the prevalent lack of interest in the history of the country manifested by his fellow citizens, he announces as his theme The Early European Friends of America. In pursuance of this subject he introduces well sketched portraits of Las Casas, Williams, Lord Baltimore, Penn, Locke, Oglethorpe, Berkeley, and Hollis. From these names he passes to a tribute to the virtues of the Dutch and the Huguenots, and an enforcement of their claims to American gratitude. The comment which this portion of the discourse occasioned, furnishes sufficient evidence of the popular ignorance on the subject, and the need of the orator's exertions to arouse his fellowtownsmen to an assertion of the at least equal claims of their progenitors to those of any other portion of the Union, to the honor of having established the principles and the prosperity, the wise theory and successful practice of our confederacy. Mr. Verplanck's address passed through several editions, and secured him the respect of the friends of American history throughout the land. In the following year a little volume of political verse, The State Triumvirate, a Political Tale, and The Epistles of Brevet Major Pindar Puff, appeared anonymously. Its authorship has never been claimed, but Mr. Verplanck has usually received the credit of having had the chief hand in its production. The satire is prin cipally levelled at the laudation of De Witt Clinton by his party friends, and contains a close review of the governor's literary pretensions. The volume is plentifully garnished with prolegomena, notes, and other scholastic trimmings by Scriblerus Busby, LL.D. Among the squibs of the town wits of this period is a clever brochure, attributed to Verplanck, on the inauguration of Dr. Hosack as President of the New York Historical Society. It is entitled, Procès Verbal of the Ceremony of Installation. The distinguished political and other local celebrities of the day are introduced as a committee of arrangement, severally taking part in the grand ceremonial. General Jacob Morton, Dr. Valentine Mott, the learned Dr. Graham, and other city magnates, tender various addresses in doggrel Latin. Simpson, of the Park Theatre, acts as stage manager for the ceremony. At an important stage of the proceedings, after a course of applause, music, and punch, the oath of office is thus ludicrously administered in the investiture of the new incumbent, who was the successor of Clinton, upon whom much of the satire turns, in the office Juras Clinton adorare, Piff-paff-puffere, et laudare. To which the President shall reply,— Juro Clinton adorare, Piff-paff-puffere, et laudare. Mr. This was printed anonymously, "for the use of the members," in 1820.* In the same year, Mr. Verplanck was chairman of the Committee on Education, in the legislature. He soon after accepted the professorship of the Evidences of Christianity in the General Protestant Episcopal Seminary, and, in 1824, published Essays on the Nature and Uses of the Various Evidences of Revealed Religion t In this work, in addition to the usual historical argument of the authenticity of the Scriptures from the testimony of mankind, the agreement of prophecy with the events which have occurred since its promulgation, the harmony of the four Evangelists, and other points of a like character, the author brings in evidence the adaptation of the Christian religion to the felt requirements of the mind of man, two lines of argument which have generally been separately urged, but which our author rightly regards as mutually aiding one another. This work, while close in its argument, is written in a fluent and elegant manner. It was followed in the succeeding year by An Essay on the Doctrine of Contracts. The The clique of wits did not enjoy the joke entirely by themselves. A sharp volley had been previously fired into their camp in a pamphlet, also anonymous, from the other side, bearing the title, An Account of Abimelech Coody and other Celebrated Writers of New York in a Letter from a Traveller to his Friend in South Carolina." This bears date January, 1815. It was a defence of the grave and honorable pursuits of the members of the Historical and Literary and Philosophical Society, and of Clinton in particular, who was understood to be its author, and who had at least an equal talent with his opponents in the satirical line, as his newspaper management of the celebrated "forty thieves" witnessed. + New York, Chas. Wiley, 1824. 8vo. pp. 267. An Essay on the Doctrine of Contracts; being an Inquiry how Contracts are Affected in Law and Morals by Concealment, Error, or Inadequate Price. By Gulian C. Verplanck. Quod SEMPER Equum et Bonum, Jus dicitur. Digest, 1. 11. de Just, et Jure. New York: G. & C. Carvill. 1825. 8vo. pp. 284. author's object ir. this treatise is to settle, so far as may be," the nature and degree of equality required in contracts of mutual interest, as well in reference to inadequacy of price, as to the more perplexing difficulty of inequality of knowledge." The usually received maxim of caveat emptor he conceives to be unsound, and urges that the laws regulating insurance, by which the owner of the property is bound to furnish the underwriter with the fullest information touching its character and hazards, should be extended to cases of bargain and sale, in which the avowed interest of both parties is to furnish an equivalent in value. In the sale of articles whose value is not determinable, or where the buyer receives no guarantee and purchases on that condition, such information is not obligatory on the seller, nor is he bound to refund in case of a sudden rise or fall in the article after the sale, which neither anticipated with certainty at the time. The essay was occasioned by a desire to check the spirit of speculation which has so often run riot over the American community, and the author, at its outset, makes special reference to a purchase of tobacco in New Orleans, by a party who had possession of the fact of a treaty of peace having been signed between the United States and Great Britain, at the depressed market price of the commodity. As soon as the news on which the purchaser traded was known to the seller, he brought suit to recover the property. The sale was finally pronounced valid by Chief-justice Marshall. In 1825 Mr. Verplanck was elected Member of Congress from the city of New York. He remained in the House of Representatives for eight years, and, though seldom appearing as a speaker, was prominent in many measures of importance, and especially in the advocacy of the bill extending the term of copyright from twenty-eight to forty-two years. At the close of the session (that of 1830-1) in which this measure was passed, Mr. Verplanck received the well merited compliment of a public dinner from "a number of citizensdistinguished for the successful cultivation of letters and the arts." The theme of his speech on the occasion was The Law of Literary Property. It is included in his collected discourses. In this he maintains that the right in the product of intellectual is the same as in that of manual labor. In 1827 Verplanck, Sands, and Bryant united in the production of an Annual, called The Talisman. It was illustrated with engravings from pictures by American artists, and continued for three successive years. In 1833 the volumes were republished with the title of Miscellanies first published under the name of The Talisman, by G. C. Verplanck, W. C. Bryant, and Robert C. Sands.t These volumes contain some of the choicest productions of their distinguished authors. Many have since appeared in the collected writings of Bryant and Sands. One of the pleasant papers which may be readily from subject and style traced to Verplanck's pen, is devoted to Reminiscences of New York, always Note in Discourses and Addresses, by G. C. Verplanck, p. 216. + 8 vols. 18mo. Elam Bliss: New York, 1883. an inviting theme in his hands. In 1833 a volume of Discourses and Addresses on Subjects of American History, Arts, and Literature, by Gulian C. Verplanck, appeared from the press of the Harpers.* It contains, in addition to the Addresses already spoken of, an eulogy of Lord Baltimore; an address on the Fine Arts; a Tribute to the Memory of Daniel H. Barnes a well known schoolmaster of New York, in which he does justice to the calling as well as the individual; an address at Columbia College on the distinguished graduates of that institution, among whom he particularizes Hamilton, Jay, Robert R. Livingston, De Witt Clinton,+ Gouverneur Morris, and Dr. Mason. The volume closes with an address before the Mercantile Library Association, somewhat similar in purpose to a lecture delivered near the close of the same year before the Mechanics' Institute, which contains an admirable enforcement of the mutual dependence of art and science, the toil of the brain and the toil of the muscle, on one another, and the importance to the business and working man of literature as a rational recreation as well as practical instructor in his career. In 1833, Mr. Verplanck also delivered a discourse, The Right Moral Influence and Use of Liberal Studies, at the commencement of Geneva College, Aug. 7, 1833; and in 1834, on a similar occasion at Union College, spoke on the Influence of Moral Causes upon Opinion, Science, and Literature. In 1836, he delivered one of the most celebrated of his discourses, The American Scholar, at Union College. The object of this production is to show that the mental activity of America, the general dissemination of intelligence, the open path to every species of intellectual distinction, more than counterbalance the opportunities for scholastic retirement, in which the new is as yet inferior to the old world. The student is warned to build his career in reference to the sphere of its employment, and not risk his happiness and usefulness by an inordinate longing for, or imitation of, models formed under different circumstances of age, society, and soil In 1844, the first number of an edition of Shakespeare's Plays, edited by Mr. Verplanck, ⚫ 12mo. pp. 257. + In his remarks on Clinton he has a handsome allusion to forgetfulness of old difficulties: The memory of De Witt Clinton, the first graduate of our Alma Mater after the peace of 1788, is another brilliant and treasured possession of this college. After the numerous tributes which have so recently been paid to his memory, and especially that luminous view of his character as a scholar and a statesman, as the promoter of good education and useful improvement, contained in the discourse lately delivered from this place by Professor Renwick, anything I could now say on the same subject would be but useless repetition. Else would I gladly pay the homage due to his eminent and lasting services, and honour that lofty ambition which taught him to look to designs of grand utility, and to their successful execution, as his arts of gaining or redeeming the confidence of a generous and public-spirited people. For whatever of party animosity might have ever blinded me to his merits, had died away long before his death; and I could now utter his honest praises without the imputation of hollow pretence from others, or the mortifying consciousness in my own breast, of rendering unwilling and tardy justice to noble designs and great public service." Lecture Introductory to the Course of Scientific Lectures before the Mechanics' Institute of the City of New York, Nov. 27, 1883. By Gulian C. Verplanck. New York: 1883. The Advantages and the Dangers of the American Scholar. A Discourse delivered on the day preceding the Annual Commencement of Union College, July 26, 1886. By Gulian C. Verplanck. New York: Wiley and Long, 1886. appeared. The publication was completed in 1847, forming three large octavo volumes.* The object of the publishers was to combine in the pictorial departinent, the attractions of the care-ful historical drawings of scenes and costumes of Planché and Harvey with the imaginative designs of Kenny Meadows, which had recently appeared in the London editions of Knight and Tyas. Mr. Verplanck's labors consist of a revision of the text, in which he has, in some cases, introduced readings varying from those of the ordinary editions, of selections from the notes of former editors, and the addition of others from his own pen. An excellent and novel feature of the latter is found in the care with which he has pointed out in the text several of the colloquial expressions often called Americanisms, which, out of use in England, have been preserved in this country. Mr. Verplanck has also given original prefaces to the plays, which, like the notes, have the ease and finish common to all his productions. His comments are judicious, and he has drawn his information from the best sources. * Mr. Verplanck has for many years divided his time between the city of New York and his ancestral homestead at Fishkill Landing on the Hudson, a well preserved old mansion, in which the Society of the Cincinnati was founded. He is one of the Commissioners of Emigration of the city, a member of the vestry of Trinity church, and is the incumbent of many other positions of trust and usefulness. He preserves in a hale old age the clear ruddy complexion with the activity of youth. THE MOTHER AND THE SCHOOLMASTER.† Of what incalculable influence, for good or for evil upon the dearest interests of society, must be the estimate entertained for the character of the great body of teachers, and the consequent respect ability of the individuals who compose it. What else is there in the whole of our social system of such extensive and powerful operation on the national character? There is one other influence more powerful, and but one. It is that of the MOTHER. The forms of a free government, the provisions of wise legislation, the schemes of the statesman, the sacrifices of the patriot, are as nothing compared with these. If the future eitizens of our republic are to be worthy of their rich inheritance, they must be made so principally through the virtue and intelligence of their Mothers. It is in the school of maternal tenderness that the kind affections must be first roused and made habitual-the early sentiment of piety awakened and rightly directed the sense of duty and moral responsibility unfolded and enlightened. But next in rank and in efficacy to that pure and holy source of moral influence is that of the Schoolmaster. It is powerful already. What would it be if in every one of those School districts which we now count by annually increasing thousands, there were to be found one teacher well-informed without pedantry, religious without bigotry or fanaticism, proud and fond of his profes Shakespeare's Plays: with his Life. Illustrated with many hundred Wood-cuts, executed by H. W. Hewet, after designs by Kenny Meadows, Harvey, and oth rs. Edited by Gulian C. Verplanck, LL.D., with Critical Introduction, Notes, etc., original and selected. In 8 vols. Harper & Brothers. 1847. + From the Tribute to the Memory of Daniel H. Barnes... sion, and honoured in the discharge of its duties! How wide would be the intellectual, the moral influence of such a body of men? Many such we have already amongst us-men humbly wise and obscurely useful, whom poverty cannot depress, nor neglect degrade. But to raise up a body of such men, as numerous as the wants and the dignity of the country demand, their labours must be fitly remunerated, and themselves and their calling cherished and honoured. The schoolmaster's occupation is laborious and ungrateful; its rewards are scanty and precarious. He may indeed be, and he ought to be, animated by the consciousness of doing good, that best of all consolations, that noblest of all motives. But that too must be often clouded by doubt and uncertainty. Obscure and inglorious as his daily occupation may appear to learned pride or worldly ambition, yet to be truly successful and happy, he must be animated by the spirit of the same great principles which inspired the most illustrious benefactors of mankind. If he bring to his task high talent and rich acquirement, he must be content to look into distant years for the proof that his labours have not been wasted that the good seed which he daily scatters abroad does not fall on stony ground and wither away, or among thorns, to be choked by the cares, the delusions, or the vices of the world. He must solace his toils with the same prophetic faith that enabled the greatest of modern philosophers,* amidst the neglect or contempt of his own times, to regard himself as sowing the seeds of truth for posterity and the care of Heaven. He must arm himself against disappointment and mortification, with a portion of that same noble confidence which soothed the greatest of modern poets when weighed down by care and danger, by poverty, old age, and blindness, still -In prophetic dream he saw He must know and he must love to teach his pupils, not the meagre elements of knowledge, but the secret and the use of their own intellectual strength, exciting and enabling them hereafter to raise for themselves the veil which covers the majestic form of Truth. He must feel deeply the reverence due to the youthful mind fraught with mighty though undeveloped energies and affections, and mysterious and eternal destinies. Thence he must have learnt to reverence himself and his profession, and to look upon its otherwise ill-requited toils as their own exeeeding great reward. If such are the difficulties and the discouragements-such, the duties, the motives, and the consolations of teachers who are worthy of that name and trust, how imperious then the obligation upon every enlightened citizen who knows and feels the value of such men to aid them, to cheer them, and to honour them! SAMUEL WOODWORTH, THE author of the Old Oaken Bucket, was the youngest son of a farmer and revolutionary soldier, and was born at Scituate, Mass., January 13, 1785. He had but few. educational advantages, as, according to the memoir prefixed to his poems in 1816, no school was taught in the village, except during the three winter months; and as a mistaken idea of economy always governed the selection of a teacher, he was generally as ignorant as his pupils. * Bacon. "Serere posteris ac Deo immortali.” Some juvenile verses written by young Woodworth attracted the attention of the village clergyman, the Rev. Nehemiah Thomas, who gave him a winter's instruction in the classics, and endeavored to raise an amount sufficient to support him at college, but without success. He was soon after apprenticed to a printer, the trade of his choice, Benjamin Russell the editor and publisher of the Columbian Centinel, Boston. He remained with his employer a year after the expiration of his indentures, and then removed to New Haven, where he commenced a weekly paper called the Belles Lettres Repository, of which he was "editor, publisher, printer, and (more than once) carrier." The latter duty was probably one of the lightest, as the periodical, after exhausting the cash received in advance, was discontinued at the end of the second month. SWEwuth Several of Woodworth's poems first appeared in The Complete Coiffeur; or an Essay on the Art of Adorning Natural and of Creating Artificial Beauty. By J. B. M. D. Lafoy, Ladies' Hair Dresser, 1817. This is a small volume of about two hundred pages, one half being occupied with a French translation of the other." M. Lafoy was probably ambitious to follow in the footsteps of the illustrious Huggins, or perhaps regarded the affair as a shrewd mode of advertising. It is to be hoped he paid Woodworth well for this literary job. Woodworth left New Haven, and after a brief sojourn in Baltimore, removed to New York in 1809. In 1810 he married. During the contest of 1812 he conducted a quarto weekly paper entitled The War, and a monthly Swedenborgian magazine, The Halcyon Luminary and Theological Repository. Both were unsuccessful. His next literary undertaking was a contract in 1816 "to write a history of the late war, in the style of a romance, to be entitled The Champions of Freedom." The work was commenced in March, and the two duodecimos were ready for delivery in the following October. It possesses little merit as history or novel. In 1818, a small volume of Woodworth's poetical contributions to various periodicals was published in New York. A second collection appeared in 1826. In 1823, he commenced with George P. Morris the publication of the New York Mirror, a periodical with which he remained connected for a year. He was a frequent contributor of occasional verses to the newspapers, and his patriotic songs on the victories of the war of 1812 14, and on other occasions, were widely popular. He was the author of several dramatic pieces, mostly operatic, which were produced with success. these, The Forest Rose, keeps possession of the stage, by virtue of the amusing Yankee character who is one of the dramatis personæ. One of In the latter years of his life he suffered from paralysis. A complimentary benefit was given to him at the National Theatre in Leonard street, at which W. E. Burton made his first appearance in New York. It produced a substantial result, a gift as acceptable as well deserved, his pecuniary resources being meagre. "The He died on the 9th of December, 1842. Old Oaken Bucket" is by far the best of his numerous lyrics. It will hold its place among the choice songs of the country. AUTUMNAL REFLECTIONS. The season of flowers is fled, The pride of the garden decayed, And spangled with colours less bright. The frolicsome Flora's domains, But though less delightful to view, That infantile age of the year: But the fruits of those beauties enjoy; Like spring, or the dawning of day! For wisdom, for works, and for use; But the fruits of those pleasures enjoy; THE PRIDE OF THE VALLEY. The pride of the valley is lovely young Ellen, And Truth is the porter that waîts at the wicket. The zephyr that lingers on violet-down pinion, She's true to her Willie, and kind to her mother, To me her affections and promise are plighted, THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET. How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood, When fond recollection presents them to view; The orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wild wood, And every loved spot which my infancy knew; The wide spreading pond, and the mill which stood by it, The bridge and the rock where the cataract fell; The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it, And e'en the rude bucket which hung in the well. The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-covered bucket which hung in the well. That moss-covered vessel I hail as a treasure; For often, at noon, when returned from the field, I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure, The purest and sweetest that nature can yield. How ardent I seized it with hands that were glowing, And quick to the white pebbled bottom it fell; Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing, And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well; Though fill'd with the nectar that Jupiter sips. And sighs for the bucket which hangs in the well; JOHN PIERPONT. THE REV. JOHN PIERPONT was born at Litchfield, Connecticut, April 6, 1785. He is a descendant of the Rev. James Pierpont, the second ininister of New Haven and a founder of Yale College. His early years were watched over with great care by an excellent mother, to whom he warmly expressed his gratitude in his subsequent poems. Entering Yale College he completed his course in 1804, and passed the succeeding four years as a private tutor in the family of Col. William Allston of South Carolina. On his return home he studied law in the celebrated school of his native town, and was admitted to practice in 1812. About the same period, being called upon to address the Washington Benevolent Society, Newburyport, where he had removed, he delivered the poem entitled "The Portrait," which he afterwards published, and which is included in the collection of his “Patriotic and Political Pieces." He soon, in consequence of impaired health, and the unsettled state of affairs produced by the war, relinquished his profession and became a mer Pierpont chant, conducting his business at Boston and afterwards at Baltiinore. He was unsuccessful, and after a few years retired. In 1816 he published the Airs of Palestine, at Baltimore. It was well received, and was twice reprinted in the course of the following year at Boston. In 1819 Mr. Pierpont was ordained minister of the Hollis Street Unitarian church in Boston. He passed a portion of the years 1835-6 in Europe, and in 1840 published a choice edition of his poems.* In 1851, on occasion of the centennial celebration at Litchfield, he delivered a poem of considerable length, with the mixture of pleasantry and sentiment called for in such recitations, and which contains, among other things, a humorous sketch of the Yankee character. Besides his poems Mr. Pierpont has published several discourses. Mr. Pierpont is erect and vigorous in appearance, with the healthy ruddiness in complexion of a youth. His style of speaking is energetic. The chief poetical performances of Mr. Pierpont have been called forth for special occasions. Even his more matured poem, the Airs of Palestine, which first gave him reputation, was written for recitation at a charitable concert. Its design is to exhibit the associations of music combined with local scenery and national character in different countries of the world, the main theme being the sacred annals of Judea. It would bear as well the title The Power of Music. It is a succession of pleasing imagery, varied in theme and harmonious in numbers. Most of the other poems of Pierpont are odes on occasional topics of religious, patriotic, or philanthropic celebrations. They are forcible and elevated, and have deservedly given the author a high reputation for this speciality. INVITATIONS OF THE MUSE-FROM AIES OF PALESTINE. How fresh this mountain air!-how soft the blue, Where lies our path ?-though many a vista call. See, there Parnassus lifts his head of snow; Airs of Palestine and other Poems, by John Pierpont Boston. Monroe & Co. |