to Tarshish have been numerous and dissimilar. Jonah, flying to Tarshish by embarking at Joppa, seems to fix its site in the Mediterranean. Some commentators have held that Carthage is meant, and this is the opinion of Dr. Davis. The difficulty in the way of this interpretation is, that two ships were built at Eziongeber. But his answer is worthy of consideration, and not improbable, that from (may we call it the dockyard? of) Eziongeber the small vessels of those days might pass through the canal of Sesostris into the Nile, and so reach the Mediterranean. He also traces the etymology of Carthage and Tarshish to a common root; and he maintains that the commodities which Solomon's fleet brought from Tarshish were all such as might be procured at Carthage. Ophir has more generally been supposed to be in the far east, but Dr. Davis reminds us that the ships of Tarshish went to Ophir, returned after the same interval, and with the like cargoes; and, by reference to the Hebrew and Arabic, he connects Ophir with Aphrica, which designated a district within the territories of Carthage. These etymological niceties are only of value as corroborative of other and weightier reasons. The labours, of which we have thus attempted to glean out a summary, were the labours of more than three years, effected by means of workmen who were scarcely companions, apart from civilized society, and by one who was content to live in "rude habitations, and to encounter many privations." His reward was the possession of a mosaic pavement, the discovery of a few others, and some few fragments of things curious beside, but they were all gained for a national repository, not for himself. That he might be enabled thus to delve, borne harmless as regarded the expense, appeared to him to be a sufficient recompense; though, perhaps, the attainment of some measure of renown may have been within the scope of his expectations, as the reward of an anticipated achievement of great value. If they who know anything of the worth of an incorruptible crown, and who have the opportunity of seeking the salvation of souls, were all as persevering, self-denying, and devoted as was this seeker of curiosities, missionary societies would have less occasion to complain that the want of suitable men is even greater than the want of pecuniary means. So also, for the metropolis, and for other scenes of deplorable spiritual destitution, men of ardent zeal and of undaunted perseverance, would be more easily found, to dig into the foundations of all that woe, and to labour, in God's strength, for trophies better than mosaics and statues. THE BIGLOW PAPERS: AMERICAN AFFAIRS. The Biglow Papers. By James Russell Lowell. With a Preface, by the author of "Tom Brown's School-days." London: Trübner and Co. 1861. THIS is a work of small size, and, apparently, of merely local and transitory importance. But the "winged words" of the poet and the satirist often exhibit a life and power of which their authors were scarcely conscious. Four lines of William Cowper's "Hast thou by statute shoved from its design The Saviour's feast,-His own blest bread and wine; An office-key, a picklock to a place ?"— are believed by many to have produced, by a gradual leavening of the public mind, the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. In our own day, we have seen the foolish phrase which had become current in the House of Commons, "I only used the words in a parliamentary sense," swept clean away by a page of welldirected ridicule. But the "Biglow Papers" have had a higher aim. They expressed, in the vivid language of genius, the indignation of a free and educated New Englander at the submission of the Northern States to the predominance of the South; and they have doubtless had a large share in producing that rising up of the North in assertion of its own rights which has ended in a fearful quarrel between the two great divisions of what used to be "the United States." James Russell Lowell was born at Cambridge, in Massachusetts, in 1819, and, having been educated at Harvard College, he was chosen, in 1855, to succeed Mr. Longfellow in the chair of Modern Literature. "The Biglow Papers" consist of only nine pieces of verse, chiefly satirical, levelled at various follies or crimes which excited the author's indignation about the years 1846 and 1847. They resemble, therefore, in one important respect, the "Letters of Junius;" which, in like manner, were political effusions called forth by the public events of the day, but which have been read by the people of England for four generations, although the occasions which drew them forth have long ceased to excite any interest. Mr. Lowell is a New Englander, a man of education, refinement, and genius,—a hater of slavery, a hater of war, and full of indignation against "the South," because he found "the South" a maintainer of slavery, and at all times ready for war. His jealousy had also been roused by the constant ascendancy of the South in the politics of the United States; an ascendancy not resting on superior numbers, wealth, or intelligence, but solely on assumption, and on superior electioneering skill. These three ideas, then-the unlawfulness of aggressive war, the immoralities of the slave system, and the submissiveness of the northern states to southern pretensions,-form the main topics of the book. But it is the work of a man of genius: and after having gained an increasing popularity in America, it has now reached Old England itself, and the present edition, of 1861, is stated to be "the third English edition." This shows that the book is no common one. We are reading with interest in England, in 1861, electioneering rhymes written in Massachusetts fifteen years ago. And this, too, in spite of one peculiar hindrance. Mr. Lowell, in order to speak to the people in their own language, wrote his verses in "the Yankee dialect." We are not unaccustomed to things of this kind in England, where, only two or three years ago, a respectable clergyman published two volumes of "Poems in the Dorsetshire Dialect;" Burns's poems are another instance; but still this harsh and strange outside must prove a hindrance to a general or speedy welcome. The first of Mr. Lowell's rhymes is a scornful tirade addressed to the recruiting sergeant, who was enlisting men in Massachusetts for the Mexican war,-a war which Mr. Lowell rightly deemed iniquitous. We copy a few of the stanzas:— ""Taint your eppyletts an' feathers "Wut's the use o' meetin'-goin' This e're cuttin' folks's throats. "They may talk o' Freedom's airy (aërie) Fer the barthrights of our race; So's to loug new slave-states in, He then apostrophizes the foolish New-Englanders that are enlisting in such a war, exclaiming,— "Well, go 'long to help 'em stealin' "Massachusetts, God forgive her! She's a kneelin' with the rest, She, that ough' to stand so fearless, Wile the wracks are round her hurled, Holdin' up a beacon peerless To the opprest of all the world. Next comes an amusing account of the adventures of one of the recruits, "Birdofredom Sawin," in the Mexican war, which ought to be read entire. In the fourth piece, the following description of a Caucus or Convention is too faithful to nature to be limited to America. The delegates "resolve":"Thet we're the original friends o' the nation, All the rest air a paltry an' base fabrication: Thet we highly respect Messrs. A, B, an' C, An' as deeply despise Messrs. E, F, an' G. In this way they go to the end of the chapter, An' then they bust out in a kind of a raptur About their own vartoo and folks's stone-blindness, To the men that 'ould actilly do 'em a kindness! "So they march in percessions, an' get up hooraws, An' think they're kind o' fulfillin' the prophecies, One humbug's victorious, an' t'other's defeated, An' the people,-their annooal soft sawder an' taxes." In the same piece we find some practical suggestions which we have seen followed in England as well as in America : "I'm willin' a man should go tollable strong Coz then he'll be kickin the people's own shins." "We'd assumed with gret skill a commandin' position, If on all pints at issoo he'd stay unintelligible. Wal, 'sposin' we hed to gulp down our perfessions, : We were ready to come out next mornin' with fresh ones; Eat * up his own words, it's a marcy it is so.' * Why, the war is a war thet true paytriots can bear, ef An' reads, with closed doors, how we won Cherry Buster." The fifth piece is a burlesque Calhoun's speeches in the senate. but should be read as a whole. account of one of John C. It is full of wit and humour, Our readers will have gathered, by this time, that the "Biglow Papers" supply us with one of the most telling and fearless exposures of the vices and weaknesses of the political system of the United States that has ever been given to the world. And its chief value consists in this, that it is not the work of a foreigner, or of an emigrant, but of a born-American; an educated and refined scholar, who is, through all, an attached supporter of his country's honour and of her best interests. We have no desire to take any unfair advantage of his confessions or admissions. We readily confess that if the political system of America has its weak points, as well as its strong ones, so has our own constitution also. In England we are |