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Dr. Thornwell is familiar with Greek, Roman, French, German, and other languages and literature, and is as vigorous and unrelenting in the pursuit of new studies now, as when he left college. His popularity with the students, and his tact in the management of youth, connected with the high respect generally entertained for him in the state, must cause his withdrawal to be deeply felt.

ORESTES A. BROWNSON.

66

THIS eminent speculative inquirer, ingenious thinker, and exponent of various religious opinions in his writings, is a native of Vermont, where he was born about the beginning of the century. In his education he has been what is usually, though incorrectly, called a self-made man; and he must always have been an earnest one, for we find him early in life a diligent inquirer in the higher walks of religious philosophy. As the life of Mr. Brownson has been passed in the pursuits of the thinker and scholar, with little external incident beyond that involved in his several changes of opinion, which have carried him in succession through different associations and sets of companions, we may cite, as a portion of his biography, what he has himself chosen to say on the subject. Much," he remarks in the preface to the collection of his Essays, in 1852, "has been said first and last in the newspapers as to the frequent changes I have undergone, and I am usually sneered at as a weathercock in religion and politics. This seldom disturbs me, for I happen to know that most of the changes alleged are purely imaginary. I was born in a Protestant community, of Protestant parents, and was brought up, so far as I was brought up at all, a Presbyterian. At the age of twenty-one I passed from Presbyterianism to what is sometimes called Liberal Christianity, to which I remained attached, at first under the form of Universalism, afterwards under that of Unitarianism, till the age of forty-one, when I had the happiness of being received into the Catholic Church. Here is the sum total of my religious changes. I no doubt experienced difficulties in defending the doctrines I professed, and I shifted my ground of defence more than once, but not the doctrines themselves.

"I was during many years, no doubt, a radical and a socialist, but both after a fashion of my own. I held two sets of principles, the one set the same that I hold now, the other the set I have rejected. I supposed the two sets could be held consistently together, that there must be some

Art. 6. 8. The Elder Question. Vol. ii. No. 1. Art. 1. 4. Paul's Preaching at Athens. Vol. ii. No. 4. Art. 1. 5. Thoughts upon the Priesthood of Christ. Vol. iii. No. 4. Art. 2. 6. Philoso

phy of Religion (Review of Morell). Vol. iii. No. 2. Art. 5. 7. Philosophy of Religion (Review of Morell). Vol. iii. No. 8. Art. 6. 8. Slavery and the Religious Instruction of the Colored Population. Vol. iv. No. 1. Art. 6. The substance of this article was also published as a Sermon on the Rights and Duties of Masters. 9. Dissertation on Miracles (Matt. xxii. 9). Vol. iv. No. 4. Art. 2. 10. Validity of Popish Baptism; a series of articles commenced in Vol. v. No. 1, and continued in successive numbers. 11. Report on Slavery. Vol. v. No. 3. Art. 8. To these may be added a Sermon on the occasion of the Death of the Hon. J. C. Calhoun, preached in the College Chapel, April, 1850, a letter to Governor Manning, on Public Instruction in South Carolina, 1858, and a Sermon preached before the Legislature, December 1854, against, demagogism, and on the duties of the legislator.

way, though I never pretended to be able to discover it, of reconciling them with each other. Fifteen years' trial and experience convinced me to the contrary, and that I must choose which set I would retain and which cast off. My natural tendency was always to conservatism, and democracy, in the sense I now reject it, I never held. In politics, I always advocated, as I advocate now, a limited government indeed, but a strong and efficient government. Here is the sum total of my political changes. I never acknowledged allegiance to any party. From 1838 to 1843, I acted with the Democratic party, because during those years it contended for the public policy I approved; since then I have adhered to no party. No party, as such, ever had any right to count on me, and most likely none ever will have. I do not believe in the infallibility of political parties, and I always did and probably always shall hold myself free to support the men and measures of any party, or to oppose them, according to my own independent convictions of what is or is not for the common good of my country." To this comprehensive outline and self-justification of an active career, we may supply some of the details as furnished by Mr. Brownson's publications.

His first work, published in 1836, entitled, New Views of Christian Society and the Church, was written while he was minister of an Independent congregation at Boston, which was called "The Society for Christian Union and Progress." It was marked by French and German opinions, which the writer put forward without particular reference to the religious body of Unitarians to which he was then attached. At this period Mr. Brownson was a contributor to the Christian Examiner. A novel which he published in 1840, Charles Elwood, or the Infidel Converted, is an autobiographic sketch, in which the writer shows minutely the mental struggle through which he had passed. The form of fiction is but a thin covering, and a slight impediment to, if it does not assist, a purely philosophical essay. It was about this time that Mr. Brownson commenced the course of independent periodical literature in which he has since been engaged. He published the Boston Quarterly Review, in five annual volumes, written from the commencement mostly by himself, from 1838 to 1812, when he merged the work in the Democratic Review at New York, to which he became a stated contributor. His articles "On the Origin and Ground of Government," "Democracy," and "Liberty," and similar topics, proved, however, to be of an unacc›mmodating character to the supporters of that journal, and Mr. Brownson withdrew from its pages to resume his independent Review, in which he could freely unfold his own sentiments and opinions without seeking to conciliate or being controlled by other interests. He then, in 1814, began at Boston the publication of the journal entitled Brownson's Quarterly Review, which has since been continued without interruption, having, in 1855, reached a twelfth annual volume, or a third of the third series. In this, Mr. Brownson having become a devoted member of the Papal Church, maintains his new views of Catholicism, in the same fluent, commanding style, once so well adapted to the energy of Democracy and the schemes of Socialism.

A novel, The Spirit Rapper, treating of the subject of demoniac agency, published in 1854, is the last of Mr. Brownson's separate publications. The style of Mr. Brownson is a remarkably felicitous one for the discussion of abstract topics; full, fluent, easily intelligible, meeting the philosophic requirements of the subject, at the same time preserving a popular interest, it was well adapted to enlist the popular ear. When employed in appeals to the laboring classes, and enforced by the living energy of the orator, its triumph was certain. As a vehicle for the speculations of the scholar it still preserves its attraction to those who delight in mental gladiatorial exercises, or are curious to note the reconciliation of the "chartered libertine" in doctrine to the authoritative voice of the Church.

NATHANAEL DEERING

Is a native of Portland, Maine, and the son of the late Mr. James Deering, an esteemed merchant of the city. He was educated at the Academy at Exeter and at Cambridge, where he was graduated at Harvard in 1810. He then studied law in the office of Chief-justice Whitman at Portland, and pursued the profession in the northern counties of his native state. He is now a resident of Portland.

Mr. Deering's literary productions are two five act tragedies Carabasset, or the Last of the Norridgewocks, which was produced at the Portland Theatre in 1831, and Bozzaris. His miscellaneous writings, including numerous tales of humor of "Down East" life, have appeared from time to time in the journals of the day.

THE WRECK OF THE TWO POLLIES.
A Ballad.

"Twas a starless night, with drifting clouds,
And angry heaved the seas;
Yet a pink-stern craft was under sail,
Her name was the "Two Polleys."
And she was built at Mount Desert,
And what might her cargo be?
She was for a long time on the Banks,
And while there was very lucky.
But darker and darker grew the night,
And loud did ocean roar;

So they two reefs in the mainsail tool,
And one reef in the fore.

The Skipper Bond was at the helm,
Methinks I see him now-

The tobacco juice on his mouth and chin,
And the salt spray on his brow.

The other hand was Isaac Small,
And only one eye had he;

But that one eye kept a sharp look-out
For breakers under the lee.

All unconcerned was Skipper Bond.
For he was a seaman bold;

But he buttoned his fearnaught higher up,
And, said he, ""Tis getting cold."

"Odd's bloods! I must the main brace splice, "So, Isaac, let us quaff

"And as the wind's a snorter, mind

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'And mix it half and half."

The Skipper raised it to his lips,

And soon the dipper drained:

A second and a third he took,

Nor of its strength complained.

"Shake out the reefs! haul aft fore sheet! "I am not the man to flag,

"With a breeze like this, in the 'Two Polleys — "So give her every rag.”

Aghast poor Isaac heard the call,
And tremblingly obeyed;

For he knew full well the Skipper was one
Who would not be gainsayed.

"Isaac, my lad, now go below,

"And speedily turn in;

"I'll call you when off Portland Light,
"We now are off Seguin."

The Skipper was alone on deck-
"Steady, my boys," he cried;
And hardly would the words escape,
When " steady 'tis," he replied.

"A plague on all our Congress men!
Light-houses so thick I see-

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"Odd's bloods! on such a darksome night "They bother exceedingly."

"Twas a sad mistake; he saw but one, And that was not Seguin ;

But the Skipper's brain like the Light revolved
So he lost his reckoning.

And what of her, the "Two Polleys ?"
She still did the helm obey;
Though her gunwales kissed the hissing surge,
And her deck was washed with the spray.
She neared the rocks, and the waves ran high,
But the Skipper heard not their roar;
His hand was clutched to the well-lashed helm,
But his head was on the floor.

The sun shone out on Richmond's Isle-
But what is that on the strand?

A broken mast and a tattered sail,
Half buried in the sand.

And there were heaps of old dun fish,
The fruits of many a haul,

But nothing was seen of the old Skipper,

Nor of one-eyed Isaac Small.

Three days had gone when a "homeward bound"
Was entering Casco Bay;

And Richmond's Isle bore Nor' Nor' West.
And for that her course she lay.

Yet scarcely three knots did she make,
For it was a cat's-paw breeze;
And the crew hung idly round her bows,
Watching the porpoises.

But there leans one on the quarter rail,
And a sudden sight he sees

Then floating past-'tis a smack's pink stern,
And on it the "Two Polleys."

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ALBERT G. GREENE,

THE author of the popular ballad of "Old Grimes," a poet of cultivation, and an ardent prosecutor of the historical literature of Rhode Island, is a native of that state, where he was born at Providence, February 10, 1802. He is a graduate of Brown University, a lawyer by profession, and has for a number of years filled the offices of Clerk of the Municipal Court of the city of Providence, and Clerk of the Common Council.

Mr. Greene's fugitive poems have never been collected, and a portion of them, of which the reputation has got abroad, are still in manuscript.

Among these is a quaint comic poem, entitled The Militia Muster, a remarkable thesaurus of the Yankee dialect, and of the vulgarisms of New England. One of the longest of Mr. Greene's serious poems, a ballad entitled Canonchet, is published in Updike's History of the Narraghansett Church.

Mr. Greene has been a curious collector of American poetry, of which he has a large library; and it is understood, contemplates a publication on the subject.

TO THE WEATHERCOCK ON OUR STEEPLE

The dawn has broke, the morn is up,
Another day begun;

And there thy poised and gilded spear
Is flashing in the sun,

Upon that steep and lofty tower

Where thou thy watch hast kept,
A true and faithful sentinel,
While all around thee slept.

For years upon thee there has poured
The summer's noon-day heat,

And through the long, dark, starless night,
The winter storms have beat;
And yet thy duty has been done,

By day and night the same,

Still thou hast met and faced the storm,
Whichever way it came.

No chilling blast in wrath has swept
Along the distant heaven,

But thou hast watched its onward course
And instant warning given;

And when mid-summer's sultry beams
Oppress all living things,

Thou dost foretell each breeze that comes
With health upon its wings.

How oft I've seen, at early dawn,
Or twilight's quiet hour,
The swallows, in their joyous glee,
Come darting round thy tower,
As if, with thee, to hail the sun
And catch its earliest light,
And offer ye the morn's salute,
Or bid ye both-good night.

And when, around thee or above,

No breath of air has stirred,

Thou seem'st to watch the circling flight
Of each free, happy bird,

Till after twittering round thy head
In many a mazy track,
The whole delighted company
Have settled on thy back..
Then, if perchance amidst their mirth,
A gentle breeze has sprung,
And prompt to mark its first approach,
Thy eager form hath swung,
I've thought I almost heard thee say,
As far aloft they flew-
"Now all away!-here ends our play,
For I have work to do?"

Men slander thee, my honest friend,
And call thee in their pride,
An emblem of their fickleness,
Thou ever faithful guide.
Each weak, unstable human mind
A "weathercock" they call;
And thus, unthinkingly, mankind
Abuse thee, one and all.

They have no right to make thy name
A by-word for their deeds:-

VOL. II.-22

They change their friends, their principles,
Their fashions, and their creeds;
Whilst thou hast ne'er, like them, been known
Thus causelessly to range;

But when thou changest sides, canst give
Good reason for the change.

Thou, like some lofty soul, whose course
The thoughtless oft condemn,
Art touched by many airs from heaven
Which never breathe on them,-
And moved by many impulses

Which they do never know,

Who, 'round their earth-bound circles, plod
The dusty paths below.

Through one more dark and cheerless night
Thou well hast kept thy trust,

And now in glory o'er thy head

The morning light has burst.

And unto Earth's true watcher, thus,
When his dark hours have passed,

Will come "the day-spring from on high,"
To cheer his path at last.

Bright symbol of fidelity,

Still may I think of thee;

And may the lesson thou dost teach
Be never lost on me;-

But still, in sun-shine or in storm,
Whatever task is mine,

May I be faithful to my trust
As thou hast been to thine.

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was raging hot,

I'll try his might—I'll brave his power; defy, and fear him not.

Ho! sound the tocsin from my tower, and fire the culverin,

Bid each retainer arm with speed,-call every vassal in,

Up with my banner on the wall,—the banquet board prepare;

Throw wide the portal of my hall, and bring my armor there!"

An hundred hands were busy then-the banquet forth was spread—

And rung the heavy oaken floor with many a martial tread,

While from the rich, dark tracery along the vaulted wall,

Lights gleamed on harness, plume, and spear, o'er the proud old Gothic hall.

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"Fill every beaker up, my men, pour forth the cheering wine,

There's life and strength in every drop,-thanksgiv ing to the vine!

Are ye all there, my vassals true?—mine eyes are waxing dim;

Fill round, my tried and fearless ones, each goblet to the brim.

"You're there, but yet I see ye not. Draw forth each trusty sword

And let me hear your faithful steel clash once around my board:

I hear it faintly:-Louder yet!-What clogs my heavy breath?

Up all, and shout for Rudiger, 'Defiance unto Death !'"

Bowl rang to bowl-steel clang to steel-and rose a deafening cry

That made the torches flare around, and shook the flags on high:

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"Ho! cravens, do ye fear him?-Slaves, traitors! have ye flown?

Ho! cowards, have ye left me to meet him here alone!

But I defy him:-let him come!" Down rang the

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Old Grimes is dead; that good old man
We never shall see more:
He used to wear a long, black coat
All buttoned down before.

His heart was open as the day,
His feelings all were true;
His hair was some inclined to grey,
He wore it in a queue.

Whene'er he heard the voice of pain,
His breast with pity burned;
The large, round head
upon his cane
From ivory was turned.
Kind words he ever had for all;

He knew no base design:

His eyes were dark and rather small,
His nose was aquiline.

He lived at peace with all mankind,
In friendship he was true:

His coat had pocket holes behind,

His pantaloons were blue.

Unharmed, the sin which earth pollutes
He passed securely o'er,
And never wore a pair of boots
For thirty years or more.

But good old Grimes is now at rest,
Nor fears misfortune's frown;
He wore a double-breasted vest;
The stripes ran up and down.

He modest merit sought to find,

And pay it its desert;

He had no malice in his mind,
No ruffles on his shirt.

His neighbors he did not abuse,
Was sociable and gay;
He wore large buckles on his shoes,
And changed them every day.
His knowledge, hid from public gaze,
He did not bring to view,-
Nor make a noise, town-meeting days,
As many people do.

His worldly goods he never threw
In trust to fortune's chances;
But lived (as all his brothers do)

In easy circumstances.
Thus undisturbed by anxious cares,
His peaceful moments ran;
And every body said he was
A fine old gentleman.

EDWARD COATE PINKNEY, THE lyric poet, was the son of the eminent lawyer and diplomatist of Maryland, William Pinkney, and was born in London, October, 1802, while his father was minister to the English Court. At the age of nine he was brought home with his parents to America, and was educated at the college at Baltimore. At fourteen he entered the navy as a midshipman, and remained nine years in the service, during which he became intimately acquainted with the classic scenes of the Mediterranean. After the death of his father in 1822, he resigned his appointment in the navy, married, and occupied himself with the law, which he pursued with some uncertainty.

The small volume of poems, sufficiently large to preserve his memory with all generous appreciators of true poetry as a writer of exquisite taste and susceptibility, appeared in Baltimore in 1825. It contained Rodolph, a Fragment, which had previously been printed anonymously for the author's friends. It is a powerful sketch of a broken life of passion and remorse, of a husband slain by the lover of his wife, of her early death in a convent, and of the paramour's wanderings and wild mental anticipations. Though a fragment, wanting in fulness of design and the last polish of execution, it is a poem of power and mark. There is an occasional inner music in the lines, demonstrative of the true poet. The imagery is happy and original, evidently derived from objects which the writer had seen in the impressible youth of his voyages in the navy. We follow the poem in a few of these similes. This is the striking opening.

The Summer's heir on land and sea
Had thrown his parting glance,
And Winter taken angrily

His waste inheritance.

The winds in stormy revelry
Sported beneath a frowning sky;
The chafing waves with hollow roar
Tumbled upon the shaken shore,
And sent their spray in upward shower
To Rodolph's proud ancestral tower,
Whose station from its mural crown
A regal look cast sternly down.

Here are the lady and her lover.

Like rarest porcelain were they,
Moulded of accidental clay:
She, loving, lovely, kind, and fair-
He, wise, and fortunate, and brave-
You'll easily suppose they were
A passionate and radiant pair,
Lighting the scenes else dark and cold,
As the sepulchral lamps of old,

A subterranean cave.

'Tis pity that their loves were vices,
And purchased at such painful prices;
'Tis pity, and Delight deplores
That grief allays her golden stores.
Yet if all chance brought rapture here,
Life would become a ceaseless fear
To leave a world then rightly dear.
Two kindred mysteries are bright,*
And cloud-like, in the southern sky;
A shadow and its sister-light,
Around the pole they float on high,
Linked in a strong though sightless chain,
The types of pleasure and of pain.

The sequel.

There was an age, they tell us, when
Eros and Anteros dwelt with men,
Ere selfishness had backward driven
The wrathful deities to heaven:
Then gods forsook their outshone skies,
For stars mistaking female eyes;
Woman was true, and man, though free,
Was faithful in idolatry.

No dial needed they to measure
Unsighing being-Time was pleasure,
And lustres, never dimmed by tears,
Were not misnamed from lustrous years.
Alas! that such a tale must seem
The fiction of a dreaming dream!—
Is it but fable?-has that age
Shone only on the poet's page,

Where earth, a luminous sphere portrayed,
Revolves not both in sun and shade?-
No!-happy love, too seldom known,
May make it for a while our own.

Yes, although fleeting rapidly,

It sometimes may be ours.

And he was gladsome as the bee,t
Which always sleeps in flowers.

Might this endure-her husband came
At an untimely tide,

But ere his tongue pronounced her shame,
Slain suddenly, he died.

'Twas whispered by whose hand he fell,

And Rodolph's prosperous loves were gone. The lady sought a convent-cell,

And lived in penitence alone;

Thrice blest, that she the waves among
Of ebbing pleasures staid not long,
To watch the sullen tide, and find
The hideous shapings left behind.
Such, sinking to its slimy bed,
Old Nile upon the antique land,
Where Time's inviolate temples stand,t
Hath ne'er deposited.

Happy, the monster of that Nile,
The vast and vigorous crocodile;
Happy, because his dying day
Is unpreceded by decay:

We perish slowly-loss of breath
Only completes our piecemeal death.

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She ceased to smile back on the sun,

Their task the Destinies had done;

And earth, which gave, resumed the charms, Whose freshness withered in its arms:

But never walked upon its face,

Nor mouldered in its dull embrace,

A creature fitter to prepare
Sorrow, or social joy to share:
When her the latter life required,
A vital harmony expired;
And in that melancholy hour,
Nature displayed its saddest power,
Subtracting from man's darkened eye
Beauties that seemed unmeant to die,
And claiming deeper sympathy
Than even when the wise or brave
Descend into an early grave.

We grieve when morning puts to flight
The pleasant visions of the night;
And surely we shall have good leave,
When a fair woman dies, to grieve.
Whither have fled that shape and gleam

Of thought-the woman, and the dream?.
Whither have fled that inner light,
And benefactress of our sight ?—

A second part describes the visions of Rodolph's distempered mind. In it occurs this fine passage on the prophetic sense of fear.

-Hearts are prophets still.
What though the fount of Castaly
Not now stains leaves with prophecy?
What though are of another age
Omens and Sybil's boding page ?—
Augurs and oracles resign

Their voices-fear can still divine:
Dreams and hand-writings on the wall
Need not foretell our fortune's fall;
Domitian in his galleries,*

The soul all hostile advents sees,
As in the mirror-stone;

Like shadows by a brilliant day
Cast down from falcons on their prey;
Or watery demons, in strong light,
By haunted waves of fountains old,
Shown indistinctly to the sight
Of the inquisitive and bold.
The mind is capable to show
Thoughts of so dim a feature,
That consciousness can only know

Their presence, not their nature;

Things which, like fleeting insect-mothers
Supply recording life to others,

And forthwith lose their own.

The remaining poems were brief, consisting of a short poetical sketch, The Indian's Bride; a Reminiscence of Italy; an Occasional Prologue, delivered at the Greek Benefit in Baltimore in 1823, and a number of passionate, sensuous songs, dedicated to love and the fair.

The author did not long survive the publication of this volume. He died in Baltimore in 1828. An appreciative biographical notice of him appeared the year previously, from the pen of the late William Leggett, in the "Old Mirror," which speaks warmly of his shorter poems as "rich in beauties of a peculiar nature, and not surpassed by productions of a similar character in the English language." The poem "On Italy," Leggett especially admired. He particularly notes the power of the four lines beginning

* Vide Suetonius.

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