variety from which the palate can extract its pleasures. Without health, no delicacy that nature or art produces can provoke a zest. Hence, when a man destroys his health, he destroys, so far as he is concerned, whatever of sweetness, of flavor and of savor, the teeming earth can produce. To him who has poisoned his appetite by excesses, the luscious pulp of grape or peach, the nectareous juices of orange or pine-apple, are but a loathing and a nausea. He has turned gardens and groves of delicious fruit into gardens and groves of ipecac and aloes. The same vicious indulgences that blasted his health, blasted all orchards and cane-fields also. Verily, the man who is physiologically "wicked" does not live out half his days; nor is this the worst of his punishinent, for he is more than half dead while he appears to live.

GEORGE BUSH,

EMINENT as a theological writer, and for his advocacy of the doctrines of Swedenborg, was born at Norwich, Vermont, June 12, 1796. He was a graduate of Dartmouth, studied at Princeton Theological Seminary, took orders in the Presbyterian Church, and was for several years a missionary in Indiana. In 1831 he became Professor of Hebrew and Oriental Literature in the University of the city of New York, and at the same period Superintendent of the Press of the American Bible Society. In 1832 he published his Life of Mahommed in Harper's Family Library. In this work copious extracts from the false prophet's revelations are interwoven with his personal memoirs.

Gre. Bush

A Treatise on the Millennium appeared in 1832. The main object of this work was to show by a somewhat elaborate train of historical and critical induction, that the prophetical period technically termed the Millennium was past instead of future; that it was not a prosperous period of the church, but the reverse; and that the expected era to which the name Millennium is given, is really the New Jerusalem era developed in the closing chapters of the Apocalypse. An octavo

volume of Scripture Illustrations published at this time by Dr. Bush, was a compilation from oriental tourists, archæologists, and commentators, with a view to cast light upon the sacred Scriptures in the departments of topography, manners, customs, costumes, arts, learning, usages of speech, &c. In 1835 his Hebrew Grammar for the use of schools, seminaries, and universities, appeared; and in 1840 the first of his series of Notes on the Books of the Old Testament, which have included Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Joshua, and Judges. These were marked as well by the ingenuity and boldness as by the learning of his speculations. He gave further attention to the sacred symbols and prophecy in the Hierophant, a monthly magazine, which he commenced in 1844. It contained a series of articles on Professor Stuart's canons of prophetical interpretation, which attracted considerable notice at the time, as rather unusual specimens of a kind but caustic criticism.

In the same year he published his Anastasis; or the Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body Rationally and Spiritually Considered, in which he opposed the doctrine of the physical construction of the body in another world, with arguments from reason and revelation. The book met with much opposition from the pulpit and reviewers, and the author replied in his work, The Resurrection of Christ, in answer to the Question whether He rose in a Spiritual and Celestial, or in a Material and Earthly Body, and The Soul, an Inquiry into Scriptural Psychology.

In

After this Dr. Bush became connected with the Swedenborgian church, as one of its preachers, and devoted himself to the dissemination of the writings of that philosopher, by translation of his Diary and other works, and especially in his editorship of the New Church Repository. 1847 he published a work on the connexion of the doctrines of Swedenborg and mesmerism. In his personal character Dr. Bush is remarkable for the kindness of his disposition. His love of mysticism harmonizes well with the pursuits of the gentle-minded scholar and ardent devotee of learning.

JOHN G. C. BRAINARD.

BRAINARD, the gentle poet of the Connecticut, the sylvan, placid stream which happily symbolizes his verse, was born in the state of that name at New London, October 21, 1796. His father had been a judge of the Superior Court, and the son for a while, after his education at Yale was completed, pursued the study of the law, but it was little adapted to his tastes and constitution, and after a brief trial of its practice at Middletown he abandoned it in February, 1822, for the editorship of a weekly paper at Hartford, the Connecticut Mirror. He is said to have neglected the politics of his paper, dismissing the tariff with a jest, while he displayed his ability in the literary and poetical department. His genius lay in the amiable walks of the belles-lettres, where the delicacy of his temperament, the correspondence of the sensitive mind to the weak physical frame, found its appropriate home and nourishment. His country needed results of this kind more than it did law or politics; and in his short life Brainard honoredhis native land. His genius is a flower plucked

from the banks of the river which he loved, and preserved for posterity.

Before entering on the Mirror Brainard wrote a few pieces for a literary paper published by Cornelius Tuthill at New Haven, called The Microscope. His compositions in the Mirror were at once relished and appreciated. Though they were mostly on trite and occasional subjects, such as time out of mind had occupied with little notice the corner of the country newspaper, yet they had a freshness of spirit infused in them, a fine poetical instinct, which charmed the youths and maidens of Connecticut. This instinct of Brainard led him to the employment of the ballad, in which he gave rare promise, as he embodied the patriotism or the superstition of the country, in such poems as Fort Griswold and the Black Fox of Salmon River. The annual new year carrier's address of the newspaper, in place of the usual doggerel, became a poem in his hands. Even album verses assumed a hue of nature and originality. He writes

TO THE DAUGHTER OF A FRIEND.

I pray thee by thy mother's face,
And by her look and by her eye,
By every decent matron grace
That hovered round the resting-place

Where thy young head did lie;
And by the voice that soothed thine ear,
The hymn, the smile, the sigh, the tear,
That matched thy changeful mood;
By every prayer thy mother taught,
By every blessing that she sought,

I pray thee to be good.

The humor of Brainard was the natural accompaniment of his sensibility. It is deeply inwrought with his gentle nature.

In 1825 a first volume of Poems was published by Brainard at New York, mostly made up from the columns of his newspaper, which was favorably received. Not long after, in 1827, the poet

was compelled by the inroad of consumption on his constitution to retire from his editorship. He went to the east end of Long Island for his health, and has left a touching memorial of his visit to the sea, in which the animation of his genius overcomes the despondency of his broken frame. He suffered and wrote verses till his death at his father's home, at New London, September 26, 1828.

After his death a second edition of Brainard's poems appeared in 1832, enlarged from the first, with the title Literary Remains, accompanied by a warmly written sketch of the poet's life by Whittier. This has been since followed by a third edition, with a portrait, an elegant and tasteful volume, published by Edward Hopkins, at Hartford, in 1842.

To the indications we have given of the poet's genius we have only to add a few personal traits. He was a small man, and sensitive on that score. His friends noticed the fine expression of his countenance when animated. He was negligent of his dress and somewhat abstracted. He wrote rapidly, and was ready in conversation, with playful repartee. His biographer, in the last edition of his poems, gives an instance of his wit. A preacher had come to New London, and labored heavily through a discourse, complaining all the time that his mind was imprisoned. When this difficulty was urged in defence of his dulness Brainard would not allow it, since "the preacher's mind might easily have sworn out." At another time he replied to a critic, who had pronounced the word "brine" in his verses on "The Deep," to have no more business in sentimental poetry than a pig in a parlor," that the objector, "though his piece is dated Philadelphia, lives at a greater distance from the sea, and has got his ideas of the salt water from his father's pork barrel."*

66

ON CONNECTICUT RIVER.

From that lone lake, the sweetest of the chain
That links the mountain to the mighty main,
Fresh from the rock and swelling by the tree;
Rushing to meet and dare and breast the sea-
Fair, noble, glorious river! in thy wave
The sunniest slopes and sweetest pastures lave;
The mountain torrent, with its wintry roar,
Springs from its home and leaps upon thy shore:-
The promontories love thee-and for this
Turn their rough cheeks and stay thee for thy kiss.
Stern, at thy source, thy northern Guardians stand,
Rude rulers of the solitary land,

Wild dwellers by thy cold sequestered springs,
Of earth the feathers and of air the wings;
Their blasts have rocked thy cradle, and in storm
Covered thy couch and swathed in snow thy form-
Yet, blessed by all the elements that sweep
The clouds above, or the unfathomed deep,
The purest breezes scent thy blooming hills,
The gentlest dews drop on thy eddying rills,
By the mossed bank, and by the aged tree,
The silver streamlet smoothest glides to thee.

The young oak greets thee at the water's edge,
Wet by the wave, though anchore 1 in the ledge.
"Tis there the otter dives, the beaver feeds,
Where pensive oziers dip their willowy weeds,
And there the wild cat purs amid her brood,
And trains them, in the sylvan solitude,

Memoir of Brainard, p. 38.

To watch the squirrel's leap, or mark the mink
Paddling the water by the quiet brink ;-
Or to out-gaze the grey owl in the dark,
Or hear the young fox practising to bark.

Dark as the frost nip'd leaves that strewed the ground,

The Indian hunter here his shelter found;
Here cut his bow and shaped his arrows true,
Here built his wigwam and his bark canoe,
Speared the quick salmon leaping up the fall,
And slew the deer without the rifle ball.
Here his young squaw her cradling tree would
choose,

Singing her chant to hush her swart pappoose,
Here stain her quills and string her trinkets rude,
And weave her warrior's wampum in the wood.
-No more shall they thy welcome waters bless,
No more their forms thy moonlit banks shall press,
No more be heard, from mountain or from grove,
His whoop of slaughter, or her song of love.

Thou didst not shake, thou didst not shrink when late

The mountain-top shut down its ponderous gate,
Tumbling its tree-grown ruins to thy side,
An avalanche of acres at a slide.

Nor dost thou stay, when winter's coldest breath Howls through the woods and sweeps along the heath

One mighty sigh relieves thy icy breast
And wakes thee from the calmness of thy rest.

Down sweeps the torrent ice-it may not stay
By rock or bridge, in narrow or in bay-
Swift, swifter to the heaving sea it goes
And leaves thee dimpling in thy sweet repose,
-Yet as the unharmed swallow skims his way,
And lightly drops his pinions in thy spray,
So the swift sail shall seek thy inland seas,
And swell and whiten in thy purer breeze,
New paddles dip thy waters, and strange oars
Feather thy waves and touch-thy noble shores.

Thy noble shores! where the tall steeple shines,
At midday, higher than thy mountain pines,
Where the white schoolhouse with its daily drill
Of sunburnt children, smiles upon the hill,
Where the neat village grows upon the eye
Decked forth in nature's sweet simplicity--
Where hard-won competence, the farmer's wealth,
Gains merit, honor, and gives labor health,
Where Goldsmith's self might send his exiled band
To find a new "Sweet Auburn" in our land.

What Art can execute or Taste devise,
Decks thy fair course and gladdens in thine eyes-
As broader sweep the bendings of thy stream,
To meet the southern Sun's more constant beam.
Here cities rise, and sea-washed commerce hails
Thy shores and winds with all her flapping sails,
From Tropic isles, or from the torrid mai
Where grows the grape, or sprouts the sugar- ane—
Or from the haunts, where the striped haddock p.ay,
By each cold northern bank and frozen bay.
Here safe returned from every stormy sea,
Waves the striped flag, the mantle of the free,
-That star-lit flag, by all the breezes curled
Of yon vast deep whose waters grasp the world.

In what Arcadian, what Utopian ground
Are warmer hearts or manlier feelings found,
More hospitable welcome, or more zeal
To make the curious "tarrying" stranger feel
That, next to home, here best may he abide,
To rest and cheer him by the chimney-side;
Drink the hale Farmer's cider, as he hears
From the grey dame the tales of other years.

Cracking his shagbarks, as the aged crone,
Mixing the true and doubtful into one,
Tells how the Indian scalped the helpless child
And bore its shrieking mother to the wild,
Butchered the father hastening to his home,
Seeking his cottage-finding but his tomb..
How drums and flags and troops were seen on high,
Wheeling and charging in the northern sky,
And that she knew what these wild tokens meant,
When to the Old French War her husband went.
How, by the thunder-blasted tree, was hid
The golden spoils of far famed Robert Kidd;
And then the chubby grand-child wants to know
About the ghosts and witches long ago,
That haunted the old swamp.

The clock strikes ten-
The prayer is said, nor unforgotten then
The stranger in their gates. A decent rule
Of Elders in thy puritanic school.

When the fresh morning wakes him from his dream,

And daylight smiles on rock, and slope, and stream,
Are there not glossy curls and sunny eyes,
As brightly lit and bluer than thy skies,
Voices as gentle as an echoed call,

And sweeter than the softened waterfall
That smiles and dimples in its whispering spray,
Leaping in sportive innocence away :—
And lovely forms, as graceful and as gay
As wild-brier, budding in an April day;
-How like the leaves-the fragrant leaves it bears,
Their sinless purposes and simple cares.

Stream of my sleeping Fathers! when the sound
Of coming war echoed thy hills around,
How did thy sons start forth from every glade,
Snatching the musket where they left the spade.
How did their mothers urge them to the fight,
Their sisters tell them to defend the right,-
How bravely did they stand, how nobly fall,
The earth their coffin and the turf their pall.
How did the aged pastor light his eye,
When to his flock he read the purpose high
And stern resolve, whate'er the toil may be,
To pledge life, name, fame, all-for Liberty.
-Cold is the hand that penned that glorious page-
Still in the grave the body of that sage
Whose, lip of eloquence and heart of zeal,
Made Patriots act and listening Statesmen feel-
Brought thy Green Mountains down upon their foes,
And thy white summits melted of their snows,
While every vale to which his voice could come,
Rang with the fife and echoed to the drum.

Bold River! better suited are thy waves
To nurse the laurels clustering round their graves,
Than many a distant stream, that soaks the mud,
Where thy brave sons have shed their gallant blood,
And felt, beyond all other mortal pain,
They ne'er should see their happy home again.

Thou had'st a poet once,--and he could tell,
Most tunefully, whate'er to thee befell,
Could fill each pastoral reed upon thy shore-
-But we shall hear his classic lays no more
He loved thee, but he took his aged way,
By Erie's shore, and Perry's glorious day,
To where Detroit looks out amidst the wood,
Remote beside the dreary solitude.

Yet for his brow thy ivy leaf shall spread,
Thy freshest myrtle lift its berried head,
And our gnarled Charter oak put forth a bough,
Whose leaves shall grace thy TRUMBULL'S honored

brow

SALMON RIVER.

Hic viridis tenera prætexit arundine ripus
Mincius.-VIRGIL.

Tis a sweet stream-and so, 'tis true, are all
That undisturbed, save by the harmless brawl
Of mimic rapid or slight waterfall,

Pursue their way

By mossy bank, and darkly waving wood,
By rock, that since the deluge fixed has stood,
Showing to sun and moon their crisping flood
By night and day.

But yet there's something in its humble rank,
Something in its pure wave and sloping bank,
Where the deer sported, and the young fawn drank
With unscared look:

There's much in its wild history, that teems
With all that's superstitious--and that seems
To match our fancy and eke out our dreams,
In that small brook.

Havoc has been upon its peaceful plain,

And blood has dropped there, like the drops of rain;
The corn grows o'er the still graves of the slain-
And many a quiver,

Filled from the reeds that grew on yonder hill,
Has spent itself in carnage. Now 'tis still,
And whistling ploughboys oft their runlets fill
From Salmon River.

Here, say old men, the Indian Magi made
Their spells by moonlight; or beneath the shade
That shrouds sequestered rock, or darkening glade,
Or tangled dell.

Here Philip came, and Miantonimo,

And asked about their fortunes long ago,

As Saul to Endor, that her witch might show

THE BLACK FOX OF SALMON RIVER.*

How cold, how beautiful, how bright,
The cloudless heaven above us shines;
But 'tis a howling winter's night—

'Twould freeze the very forest pines. "The winds are up, while mortals sleep; The stars look forth when eyes are shut; The bolted snow lies drifted deep Around our poor and lonely hut. With silent step and listening ear,

With bow and arrow, dog and gun, We'll mark his track, for his prowl we hear, Now is our time-come on, come on."

These lines are founded on a legend that is as well authenticated as any superstition of the kind; and as current in the place where it originated, as could be expected of one that possesses so little interest.-Author's Note.

O'er

many a fence, through many a wood, Following the dog's bewildered scent, In anxious haste and earnest mood,

The Indian and the white man went.

The gun is cocked, the bow is bent,
The dog stands with uplifted paw,
And ball and arrow swift are sent,

Aimed at the prowler's very jaw.
-The ball, to kill that fox, is run

Not in a mould by mortals made!
The arrow which that fox should shun,
Was never shaped from earthly reed!
The Indian Druids of the wood

Know where the fatal arrows grow-
They spring not by the summer flood,
They pierce not through the winter snow!
Why cowers the dog, whose snuffing nose
Was never once deceived till now?
And why, amid the chilling snows,
Does either hunter wipe his brow?
For once they see his fearful den,

"Tis a dark cloud that slowly moves By night around the homes of men, By day-along the stream it loves. Again the dog is on his track,

The hunters chase o'er dale and hill, They may not, though they would, look back, They must go forward-forward still. Onward they go, and never turn,

Spending a night that meets no day;
For them shall never morning sun
Light them upon their endless way.
The hut is desolate, and there

The famished dog alone returns;
On the cold steps he makes his lair,
By the shut door he lays his bones.
Now the tired sportsman leans his gun
Against the ruins of the site,
And ponders on the hunting done

By the lost wanderers of the night.
And there the little country girls

Will stop to whisper, and listen, and look, And tell, while dressing their sunny curls, Of the Black Fox of Salmon Brook.

THE SEA BIRD'S SONG.

On the deep is the mariner's danger,
On the deep is the mariner's death,
Who to fear of the tempest a stranger
Sees the last bubble burst of his breath?
'Tis the sea-bird, sea-bird, sea-bird,
Lone looker on despair,
The sea-bird, sea-bird, sea-bird,
The only witness there.

Who watches their course, who so mildly
Careen to the kiss of the breeze?
Who lists to their shrieks, who so wildly
Are clasped in the arms of the seas?
"Tis the sea-bird, &c.

Who hovers on high o'er the lover,
And her who has clung to his neck?
Whose wing is the wing that can cover,
With its shadow, the foundering wreck!
"Tis the sea-bird, &c.

My eye in the light of the billow,

My wing on the wake of the wave;
I shall take to my breast for a pillow,
The shroud of the fair and the brave.

I'm a sea-bird, &c.

My foot on the iceberg has lighted,
When hoarse the wild winds veer about;
My eye, when the bark is benighted,
Sees the lamp of the Light-House go out.
I'm the sea-bird, sea-bird, sea-bird,
Lone looker on despair;
The sea-bird, sea-bird, sea-bird,
The only witness there.

STANZAS.

The dead leaves strew the forest walk,
And withered are the pale wild flowers;
The frost hangs black'ning on the stalk,

The dew-drops fall in frozen showers.
Gone are the Spring's green sprouting bowers,
Gone Summer's rich and mantling vines,

And Autumn, with her yellow hours,
On hill and plain no longer shines.

I learned a clear and wild-toned note,
That rose and swelled from yonder tree-
A gay bird, with too sweet a throat,

There perched and raised her song for me.
The winter comes, and where is she?
Away-where summer wings will rove,

Where buds are fresh, and every tree Is vocal with the notes of love.

Too mild the breath of Southern sky,

Too fresh the flower that blushes there,
The Northern breeze that rushes by,
Finds leaves too green, and buds too fair;
No forest tree stands stripped and bare,
No stream beneath the ice is dead,

No mountain top with sleety hair
Bends o'er the snows its reverend head.
Go there with all the birds-and seek
A happier clime, with livelier flight,
Kiss, with the sun, the evening's cheek,
And leave me lonely with the night.
-I'll gaze upon the cold north light,
And mark where all its glories shone-
See-that it all is fair and bright,
Feel that it all is cold and gone.

GEORGE TICKNOR,

THE distinguished historian of Spanish literature, was born in the city of Boston, Mass., August 1, 1791. He was prepared for college at home, entered Dartmouth, and received his degree there at the early age of sixteen. He occupied himself the next three years in Boston with a diligent study of the ancient classics, when he engaged in the study of the law, and was admitted to the bar in 1813. The tastes of the scholar, however, prevailed over the practice of the profession, and in 1815 Mr. Ticknor sailed for Europe to accomplish himself in the thorough course of instruction of a German university. He passed two years at Gottingen in philological studies, which he continued during a residence of two years more in various capitals, as Paris, Madrid, Lisbon, Rome, and Edinburgh, making the acquaintance of eminent scholars on the continent and Great Britain, among others of Sir Walter Scott and Robert Southey, who admired his scholarship, and stock of curious Spanish lore. In 1819 he visited Abbotsford with Dr. J. G. Cogswell," another well accomplished Yankee," as Scott makes mention of the young American scholars in a letter to Southey."* Mr. Ticknor

Lockhart's Scott, ch. 44.

had already at that time become a proficient in the romance dialects of the Provençal, and collected many of the curiosities of Castilian literature. It was probably these out-of-the-way acquisitions, which lay in the path of Scott's favorite studies, which led him, in the same letter, to note his visitor as "a wondrous fellow for romantic lore and antiquarian research." With Southey, Mr. Ticknor held and continued to hold till the death of the poet, the most intimate relations of friendly correspondence and association, in similar pursuits of learning and scholarship.

During this absence Mr. Ticknor was appointed in 1817 the first incumbent of a new professorship founded at Harvard, of the French and Spanish Languages and Literature, and of the Belles Lettres-in fact, a general Professorship of Modern Literature. Well qualified for the work he returned to America, and became actively engrossed in its duties, delivering lectures on French and Spanish Literature; on particular authors, as Dante and Goethe; on the English poets, and other kindred topics. "We well remember," says Mr. Prescott the historian, in an article in the North American Review, "the sensation produced on the first delivery of these lectures, which served to break down the barrier which had so long confined the student to a converse with antiquity; they opened to him a free range among those great masters of modern literature, who had hitherto been veiled in the obscurity of a foreign idiom. The influence of this instruction was soon visible in the higher education as well as the literary ardor shown by the graduates. So decided was the impulse thus given to the popular sentiment, that considerable apprehension was felt lest modern literature was to receive a disproportionate share of attention in the scheme of collegiate education."