ficial rapture is the natural offspring of a warm heart and a pure taste. Pshaw-people that do not love fine conversation and fine reading, be yond fine speaking and fine singing, have neither understanding nor taste. The favorable reception of a portion of these novels in England, on their republication, induced their author to try his literary fortunes in that country. With his characteristic promptitude he closed up his business affairs, transferred his clients to a professional brother, borrowed cash, and was off in three weeks. He arrived in England in January, 1824, and remained three years, writing for Blackwood (where in 1824 and 1825 he published a series of articles on American writers, not forgetting, as we have already seen, himself) and other periodicals. He became acquainted with Jeremy Bentham, who asked him to dinner, and liked him so well, that he next invited him to reside in his house. He accepted the invitation, and passed the remainder of his time in London there, "with a glorious library at my elbow, a fine large comfortable study warmed by a steam-engine, exercise under ground, society, and retirement, all within my reach."* In 1827, after a short tour in France, Neal returned to Portland, and commenced a weekly newspaper, The Yankee. It was after published at Boston, but change of air not improving its vitality, at the end of a year it was merged in "The New England Galaxy," and its late editor returned to Portland. In 1828 he published Rachel Dyer, a story, in a single volume, the subject of which is "Salem Witchcraft." It is much more subdued in style than his earlier novels, and is a carefully prepared and historically correct picture of the period it presents. It was originally written for Blackwood's Magazine, as the first of a series of North American stories. It was accepted, paid for, and in type, when a misunderstanding occurring between the author and publisher, the former paid back the sum he had received, and withdrew the story, which he subsequently enlarged to its present form. This was followed in 1830 by Authorship, by a New Englander over the Sea. It is a rambling narrative, whose interest is dependent on the mystery in which the reader is kept until near its close, respecting the character of the chief personages. The Down Easters and Ruth Elder, which have since appeared, close the series of Mr. Neal's novels. There is a great deal of merit in the works we have mentioned; they are full of dramatic power and incident; but these virtues are well nigh overbalanced by their extravagance, and the jerking, out-of-breath style in which they are often written. "I do not pretend," he says, in the "unpublished preface to the North American Stories," prefixed to "Rachel Dyer," "to write English; that is, I do not pretend to write what the English themselves call English-I do not, and I hope to God-I say this reverently, although one of their reviewers may be again puzzled to determine whether I am swearing or praying,' when I say so that I never shall write what is now worship • Passage from the biography prefixed to the translation of the Principles of Legislation, from the French of Dumont. ped under the name of classical English. It is no natural language-it never was-it never will be spoken alive on this earth, and therefore ought never to be written. We have dead languages enough now, but the deadest language I ever met with or heard of, was that in use among the writers of Queen Anne's day." The vigor of the man, however, pervades everything he has produced. He sees and thinks as well as writes, after his own fashion, and neither fears nor follows criticism. It is to be regretted that he has not more fully elaborated his prose productions, as that process would probably have given them a firmer hold on public favor than they appear to have secured. There is much strong vigorous sense, independence in speaking of men and things; good, close thought; analysis of character, and clear description, which the public should not lose, in these pages. Mr. Neal has written much for the periodicals, and some of his finest poems have appeared in this manner since the publication of his early volume. He announced, a few years since, that he was engaged upon a History of American Literature. A WAR SONG OF THE REVOLUTION. Men of the North! look up! Great shadows hurrying by. Your strength-where is it now? Men of the North! awake! Ye're called to from the deep; A stir in every tree; A shout from every wave; A challenging on every side; A moan from every grave: A battle in the sky; Ships thundering through the airJehovah on the march Men of the North, to prayer! Now, now-in all your strength; There's that before your way, Above, about you, and below, Like armies in array. Lift up your eyes, and see The changes overhead; With bright commotion burns, Solemnly and swift, The moon afraid-stars dropping outThe very skies adrift; The Everlasting God: Our Father-Lord of LoveWith cherubim and seraphim All gathering above. Their stormy plumage lighted up As forth to war they go; The shadow of the Universe, Upon our haughty foe! THE BIRTH OF A POET, On a blue summer night, While the stars were asleep, In their own drowsy light; On the green earth lay, And all that came near it went scented away. From a lone woody place There looked out a face, With large blue eyes, Like the wet warm skies, Brimful of water and light; A profusion of hair Flashing out on the air, And a forehead alarmingly bright: "Twas the head of a poet! He grew As the sweet strange flowers of the wilderness grow, In the dropping of natural dew, Unheeded-alone Till his heart had blown As the sweet strange flowers of the wilder- Till every thought wore a changeable stain, With a haughty look and a haughty tread, With wonderful eyes Full of woe and surprise, Like the eyes of them that can see the dead. Looking about, For a moment or two he stood On the shore of the mighty wood; Then ventured out, With a bounding step and a joyful shout, The brave sky bending o'er him! The broad sea all before him! ORVILLE DEWEY. THE Rev. Orville Dewey is the son of a farmer, of Sheffield, Berkshire, Massachusetts where he was born in the year 1794. He took his degree with distinction at Williams College in 1814, and afterwards passed some months in teaching school in his native village, and as a clerk in a dry-goods store in New York. In 1816 he entered Andover Theological Seminary. He completed his course of study in 1819, was ordained, and preached with success as a Presbyterian clergyman, but within a year connected himself with the Unitarian denomination. During the absence of Dr. Channing in Europe, Mr. Dewey was invited to supply his place. He was afterwards settled at New Bedford for ten years. He then in consequence of ill health went to Europe, remaining abroad for two years. On his return, in 1835, he published a volume of Discourses on Various Subjects, and about the same time became the pastor of the Unitarian Church of the Messiah in the city of New York. In 1886, he published The Old World and the New; a Journal of Observations and Reflections made on a visit to Europe in 1833 and 1834. Dr. Dewey speedily became widely known as a pulpit orator, for his eloquent discussion of moral themes, and his adaptation of the religious essay to the pastoral wants and pursuits of the public. His church in Mercer-street having been destroyed by fire, was replaced by an edifice in Broadway of far greater value and architectural merit. In 1838, Dr. Dewey followed out the spirit of a great portion of his professional labors by the publication of Moral Views of Commerce, Society, and Politics, in twelve Discourses. These were followed in 1841 by Discourses on Human Life, and in 1846 by Discourses and Reviews on Questions relating to Controversial Theology and Practical Religion. He has also published, separately, a number of sermons and addresses. In 1844, all of the author's works which had then appeared were issued in London, in a closely printed octavo volume of about nine hundred pages. In 1849, Dr. Dewey resigned his charge of the Church of the Messiah on account of ill health, and after a period of some months of relaxation, passed mostly in travel, accepted a call to Washington City. He has of late resided at his farm in Sheffield, in his native Berkshire. As a preacher Dr. Dewey is grave and weighty; his manner conveying the idea of the man of thought, who draws his reflections from the depths of his own nature. He is ingenious and speculative, and impresses his audience as a philosophic teacher, whether from the pulpit or in the lecture hall. STUDY-FROM A PHI BETA KAPPA ADDRESS AT CAMBRIDGE IN 1880. The favorite idea of a genius among us, is of one who never studies, or who studies, nobody can tell when-at midnight, or at odd times and intervalsand now and then strikes out, at a heat, as the phrase is, some wonderful production. This is a character that has figured largely in the history of our literature, in the person of our Fieldings, our Savages, and our Steeles "loose fellows about town," or loungers in the country, who slept in alehouses and wrote in bar-rooms, who took up the pen as a magician's wand to supply their wants, and when the pressure of necessity was relieved, resorted again to their carousals. Your real genius is an idle, irregular, vagabond sort of personage, who muses in the fields or dreams by the fire-side; whose strong impulses-that is the cant of it-must needs hurry him into wild irregularities or foolish eccentricity; who abhors order, and can bear no restraint, and eschews all labor: such an one, for instance, as Newton or Milton! What! they must have been irregular, else they were no geniuses. "The young man," it is often said, "has genius enough, if he would only study." Now the truth is, as I shall take the liberty to state it, that genius will study, it is that in the mind which does study; that is the very nature of it. I care not to say that it will always use books. All study is not reading, any more than all reading is study. By study I mean-but let one of the noblest geniuses and hardest students of any age define it for me. "Studium," says Cicero, "est animi assidua et vehemens ad aliquam rem applicata magnâ cum voluntate occupatio, ut philosophiæ, poëticæ, geometriæ, literarum.” * Such study, such intense mental De Inventione, Lib. i. c. 25. action, and nothing else, is genius. And so far as there is any native predisposition about this enviable character of mind, it is a predisposition to that action. That is the only test of the original bias; and he who does not come to that point, though he may have shrewdness, and readiness, and parts, never had a genius. No need to waste regrets upon him, as that he never could be induced to give his attention or study to anything; he never had that which he is supposed to have lost. For attention it is, though other qualities belong to this transcendent power, attention it is, that is the very soul of genius: not the fixed eye, not the poring over a book, but the fixed thought. It is, in fact, an action of the mind which is steadily concentrated upon one idea or one series of ideas,-which collects in one point the rays of the soul till they search, penetrate, and fire the whole train of its thoughts. And while the fire burns within, the outward man may indeed be cold, indifferent, negligent,-absent in appearance; he may be an idler, or a wanderer, apparently without aim or intent: but still the fire burns within. And what though "it bursts forth" at length, as has been said, "like volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force?" It only shows the intenser action of the elements beneath. What though it breaks like lightning from the cloud? The electric fire had been collecting in the firmament through many a silent, calm, and clear day. What though the might of genius appears in one decisive blow, struck in some moment of high debate, or at the crisis of a nation's peril? That mighty energy, though it may have heaved in the breast of a Demosthenes, was once a feeble infant's thought. A mother's eye watched over its dawning. A father's care guarded its early growth. It soon trod with youthful steps the halls of learning, and found other fathers to wake and to watch for it, even as it finds them here. It went on: but sile.ace was upon its path, and the deep, strugglings of the inward soul marked its progress, and the cherishing powers of nature silently ministered to it. The elements around breathed upon it and "touched it to finer issues." The golden ray of heaven fell upon it, and ripened its expanding faculties. The slow revolutions of years slowly added to its collected treasures and energies; till in its hour of glory, it stood forth embodied in the form of living, commanding, irresistible eloquence! The world wonders at the manifestation, and says, "Strange, strange, that it should come thus unsought, unpremeditated, unprepared!" But the truth is, there is no more a miracle in it, than there is in the towering of the preeminent forest tree, or in the flowing of the mighty and irresistible river, or in the wealth and the waving of the boundless harvest. JARED SPARKS. JARED SPARKS, whose numerous literary labors are so honorably connected with American history and biography, was born at Willington, in the state of Connecticut, about 1794. In his youth he worked on a farin, and in the intervals of occupation in a grist and saw-mill which he tended, became interested in a copy of Guthrie's Geography, which, in its way, encouraged his natural love of learning. He was a good student in such schools as a country town then afforded. He became apprenticed to a carpenter, with whom he remained some two years, when his employer, in deference to his love of study, relinquished his legal hold upon his time. Sparks became at once a village schoolmaster in the district of the town of Tol land, teaching in the winter, and returning for a livelihood to his trade in the summer. He attracted the attention of the clergyman of Willington, the Rev. Hubbel Loomis, who taught him mathematics and induced him to study Latin. In return for this instruction and residence in his friend's house, he turned his carpenter's knowledge to account, and shingled the minister's barn. The Rev. Abiel Abbot, lately of Peterborough, New Hampshire, extended the patronage which his brother clergyman had commenced. By his influence Sparks was secured a scholarship at the Phillips Exeter Academy, on a charitable foundation, which provided education and a home free of cost. He travelled to Mr. Abbot at Coventry, and thence on foot to Exeter. In 1809 he thus found himself at the celebrated institution then and long after under the care of Dr. Benjamin Abbot. He remained there two years, teaching a school one winter at Rochester in New Hampshire. He entered Harvard in 1811, and was assisted by his warm friend President Kirkland to a scholarship, the resources of which he eked out by district-school-keeping a portion of the year in New England, and an engagement in the first two years of his undergraduate course at a private school, as far off as Havre de Grace, in Maryland, to which he was recommended by President Dwight of Yale. While in this latter place it was invaded by the British troops in 1813. Before the assault he served in the militia, and remained to witness the conflagration of the town. He returned to Harvard to be a graduate with the class of 1815. He then taught a classical school at Lancaster, Massachusetts, and came back to Harvard to study divinity under Dr. Ware. The college, in 1817, appointed him a tutor in mathematics and natural philosophy, the duties of which he discharged for two years while he prosecuted his theological studies. one of the associates to whom Mr. Tudor assigned The North American Review at this time, and became its working editor. Two years afterwards, in May, 1819, he was ordained pastor of a new Unitarian Church at Baltimore, Maryland, Dr. Channing preaching on the occasion. It was the controversial period of Unitarianism, and Sparks took part in the discussion, publishing, in 1820, a volume of Letters on the Ministry, Ritual, and Doctrines of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in reply to a sermon levelled at his doctrines by the Rev. Dr. William E. Wyatt. In 1821, a proof of his position and standing, he was elected chaplain to the House of Representatives. The same year he commenced a monthly periodical, in duodecimo, entitled The Unitarian Miscellany and Christian Monitor. It was continued by him for two years during his stay at Baltimore. He wrote in it a series of letters to the Rev. Dr. Miller of Princeton, on the Comparative Moral Tendency of Trinitarian and Unitarian Doctrines, which he afterwards enlarged and published at Boston, in a volume, in 1823. He also commenced at Baltimore the publication of a Collection of Essays and Tracts in Theology, from Various Authors, with Biographical and Critical Notices, which was completed at Boston in 1826, in six duodecimo volumes. The plan was suggested by Bishop Watson's Collection of Tracts. It took a comprehensive He was range within the limits of practical Christianity and liberal inquiry, including such authors as Jeremy Taylor, Locke, Watts, William Penn, Bishop Hoadly, John Hales, and others of the English Church. It contained some translations from the French. After four years of laborious ministerial duty at Baltimore, he retired from the position, and travelled in the western states for his health. Returning to Boston, he purchased The North American Review of its proprietors, and became its sole editor. In 1828, he published a Life of John Ledyard, the American Traveller, which passed through several editions, was translated into German by Dr. Michaelis, and published at Leipsic, and has since been included in the author's series of American Biography. Javed Sparke He had already undertaken an important work in his literary career, the collection for publication of the Writings of Washington. In pursuance of this work, in 1826, he had examined personally the revolutionary papers in the public offices of all the thirteen original States and the department at Washington, and afterwards, by arrangement with Judge Washington and Chiefjustice Marshall, secured the possession of all the Washington papers at Mount Vernon. He further, in 1828, made a voyage to Europe for the purpose of transcribing documents in the state archives at London and Paris-which were now for the first time opened, for historical purposes, to his investigation, by the aid of Sir James Mackintosh, the Marquis of Lansdowne, and Lord Holland in England, and La Fayette and the Marquis de Marbois in France. At the end of a year he returned with a valuable stock of materials to America. After nine years of preparation the work appeared in successive volumes, from 1834 to 1837, bearing the title, The Writings of George Washington, being his Correspondence, | Addresses, Messages, and other Papers, official and private, selected and published from the original manuscripts, with a Life of the Author, Notes, and Illustrations. The first volume was occupied with a Life of Washington, which has also been published separately. The whole was received with great favor at home and abroad, Mr. Everett reviewing the work in the North American, and Guizot, in France, editing a selection from the Correspondence, and prefixing to it his highly prized Introductory Discourse on the Character, Influence, and Public Career of Washington; while the German historian, Von Raumer, prepared an edition at Leipsic. During this period also, Mr. Sparks prepared, and with the aid of Congress published in 1829-30, a series of twelve octavo volumes of the Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, including, with occasional notes and comments, letters of Franklin, Adams, Jay, Deane, Lee, Dana, and other agents abroad, as well as of the French ministers, to Congress, during the period of the Revolution. These were derived from the American State Department, with omissions supplied from the editor's European and other collections, In 1830, Mr. Sparks also originated what has formed one of the most valuable publications of the times, The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge. The first volume was edited by him. In 1832, he published another work of similar importance, The Life of Governeur Morris, with Selections from his Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers, detailing Events in the French Revolution and the Political History of the United States. This also secured notice abroad, and was translated into French, in its chief portions, by M. Augustin Gandais, and published in two volumes at Paris. Another literary undertaking in which Mr. Sparks was not merely himself a pioneer, but the leader of a band of writers of influence, was his Library of American Biography, of which two series were published, the first of ten volumes from 1834 to 1838, the second of fifteen from 1844 to 1848. Of the sixty lives in this collection, eight were from the pen of Sparks, who contributed biographies of Ethan Allen, Benedict Arnold, Father Marquette, De la Salle, Count Pulaski, John Ribault, Charles Lee, and a reprint of the Ledyard volume. To these numerous and extended undertakings another, of parallel interest with the Washington Papers, was added in 1840, the ten volumes occupied with The Works of Benjamin Franklin; containing several Political and Historical Tracts not included in any former edition, and many Letters, Official and Private, not hitherto published; with Notes and a Life of the Author. The Life was a careful and elaborate supplement to the Autobiography, and the work was further enriched with many valuable facts and comments. As proof of the author's industry, two hundred and fifty-three of Franklin's Letters were there printed for the first time, and one hundred and fifty-four first brought together from scattered publications. The work also included numerous letters to Franklin, from his distinguished foreign correspondents. A companion to the Washington Correspondence appeared at the beginning of 1854, The Correspondence of the American Revolution, being Letters of Eminent Men to George Washington, from the time of his taking Command of the Army to the End of his Presidency. It was edited from the original MSS., which had been in Mr. Sparks's possession. Besides these literary occupations, which have brought the libraries of the country an accession of no less than sixty-six volumes of national interest, Mr. Sparks has performed, at Harvard, the duties of the McLean Professorship of Ancient and Modern History, from 1839 to 1849; while from 1849 to 1852 he held the arduous office of President of that Institution, which he was compelled to relinquish from ill health. He has since resided at his home at Cambridge, still engaged upon the illustration of the history of his country, and with the preparation, it is currently reported, of a History of the American Revolution. In his personal relations, the amiability of Mr. Sparks and the attachment of his friends are no less worthy of record than the hold which he has firmly secured upon the public gratitude by his numerous patriotic, carefully penned, and well directed literary labors.* EDWARD ROBINSON. DR. EDWARD ROBINSON, the eminent philologist and learned traveller and geographer of the Holy Land, was born April 10, 1794, in Southington, Conn., where his father, the Rev. William Robinson, was for forty-one years pastor of the Congregational church. The family are descended, through the Rev. John Robinson of Duxbury, Mass., from William Robinson of Dorchester. He was there in 1636; but there is no evidence that he was connected with John Robinson of Leyden. As the father's salary was small, less than $400 a year, he cultivated a farm; and the son was sent to the district-school in winter, and employed on the farm during summer. He had an early taste for reading, especially books of travels; for which his father's library, and a subscription library in the village, hardly afforded sufficient materials. In his fourteenth year he was placed, with several other boys, in the family and under the tuition of the Rev. I. B. Woodward of Wolcott, an adjacent town. Here he continued till early in 1810, having for a part of the time the poet Percival as a fellow-pupil. His studies were merely English with the elements of Latin; his father not purposing to send him to college, on account of his feeble constitution and infirm health. In March and April, 1810, he taught a districtschool in East Haven, Conn., where a large portion of his pupils were older than himself. In the following May he was employed in the central district-school in Farmington, where he con after having been for many years principal of the academy, had been appointed professor of languages in Hamilton College, then just chartered. Young Robinson joined that autumn the first Freshman class in the college, and graduated in 1816 with the highest honors. In college his inclination turned, perhaps, rather to mathematical than to philological pursuits. He enjoyed the confidence of the professors and of the president, Dr. Azel Backus, who died in the December after Mr. Robinson left. In February, 1817, Mr. Robinson entered the office of the late James Strong of Hudson, New York, afterwards member of Congress; but in October of that year was called as tutor to Hamilton College, where he remained a year, teaching mathematics and the Greek language. In the autumn of 1818 he married the youngest daughter of the Rev. Samuel Kirkland, former missionary to the Indians, sister of the late President Kirkland. She died in July of the following year; and Mr. Robinson continued to reside in Clinton, pursuing his studies, until September, 1821, when he returned for a short time to his father's house. In December, 1821, he went to Andover, Mass., in order to print a work he had prepared for colIliad, with Latin notes, selected chiefly from lege instruction, containing the first books of the Heyne. Here his attention was directed to the ology, and he commenced the study of Hebrew; but without connecting himself with the seminary. A year afterwards, at the request of Professor Stuart, he was employed to correct the proofs of the second edition of his Hebrew Grainmar (Andover, 1823), and soon became associated with him in the preparation of the work itself. tinued a year. The ensuing season, until May, Edward Robinson, 1812, he spent in a country store in Southington; in which it was his father's plan that he should become a partner. This, however, was not to his own taste; and in June, 1812, he went to Clinton, Oneida county, New York, where one maternal uncle, the Rev. A. S. Norton, D.D., was pastor of the village church; and another, Seth Norton, We are indebted for the enumeration of facts in this notice to the new edition of 1854 of the American Portrait Gallery. which contains a clearly written and authentic summary of Mr. Sparks's literary career. The same year (1823) Professor Stuart having gone on a foot-journey for his health, Mr. Robinson was employed to take charge of his class in the seminary. The same autumn he was appointed assistant instructor, and continued as such until the spring of 1826. In the meantime he translated from the German, in connexion with Professor Stuart, Winer's Grammar of the New Testament; and also by himself, from the Latin, Wahl's Clavis Novi Testamenti (Andover, 1825). |