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upon the point, for we believe no man in the full possession of his senses is disposed to contest it. Moore, when he wrote the words, knew himself to be the son of a publican in Dublin, Southey to be the son of a tradesman in Bristol, Crabbe to be the son of a collector of salt duties in Suffolk. Had he thought for half the time it took him to insert such trash in the diary, it could never have been reproduced here to his disadvantage. He must have known that the wonder is, not that the

Thomas makes frequent excursions from Wiltshire to London, and exciting enough is the life he leads in the metropolis. He generally arrives in town "just in time to dress for dinner," and he continues dressing and undressing until he finds his way back to the cottage. His published works are voluminous, and it is really astonishing how he found leisure and tranquillity of spirit for his labors. He has not a moment to himself in London; and in the country he spends quite as much time with the great folks as in his own study. His appetite for pleasure is gluttonous. He is an inveterate play-goer, delighting in Astley's and finding infinite amusement at the Coburg. He dances away at

Lords. Moore is once quite disgusted with Crabbe, because the latter maintained that Murray, the publisher, deserved a higher place at a public dinner than Phillips, the artist and academician, inasmuch as the former kept his carriage. This," says Tom indignantly, "is inconceivable." But what to us seems equally inconceivable is Moore's own appreciation of high birth over every other consideration. Honest Crabbe made a mistake, no doubt. A carriage is certainly no absolute proof of moral or mental worth, nor" middling class" furnishes the country with is a coronet, Mr. Moore as you suppose. the staple of its intellect and energy, but that invariably the crown of human greatness. occasionally "a proof of the intelligence" of Moore professes himself horrified because this the class above it presents itself to give variety same Mr. Murray is familiarly addressed in a to the general rule. Oh, that white soup, letter from Lord Byron, and exclaims, "Mur-gold plates, silver-laced lacqueys, and velvet ray, a bookseller, a person so out of his caste!" chairs should rob- though but for an hour trying to persuade himself, though he can a fine soul of its manliness, and induce it never succeed that his caste is not questioned to put on the flaunting and degrading livery for a moment in the very highest circles! of flunkeyism! This is bad enough; but the paragraph that follows reaches to the height of absurdity. Moore has dined at Bowood, and thus speaks of the dinner in his diary :-"Sat between Mackintosh and Lord Lansdowne. Talked of Fearon and Birkbeck. The singularity of two such men being produced out of the middling class of society at the same time; proof of the intelligence now spread through that rank of Englishmen. WHAT IT WILL COME TO GOD KNOWS. When Elliston played George the Fourth in the coronation pageant at Drurylane, he was so overcome by the applause of the audience that he quitted the procession, approached the foot-lights, burst into tears, and exclaimed, "God bless you, my people!" In like manner, Thomas Moore acts his part of fine gentleman so admirably, that he positively forgets his own identity. What does he mean by proclaiming as "a singular fact" the production at the same time of two such men from "the middling class of society" as Fearon and Birkbeck? The words are arrant nonsense. Have all our great men stepped from the ranks of the nobility, that Thomas Moore should express absolute astonishment at the appearance of Birkbeck, and feign alarm at the phenomenon? To be sure the said The year was 1819, and Tom was, as usual, Thomas had brevet-rank at Bowood, but, if we dining, dancing, singing, and playing, when cannot claim for the “middling class" a poet he received the disagreeable, but not altogether whose grandfather, on the mother's side, was unexpected, intelligence, that either the defalin the provision line," and whose grand- cations of the dishonest deputy in Bermuda father on the other side is utterly lost in the (or rather, out of it — for the fellow had abocean of time, we are certainly not disposed sconded) must be made good, or the poet bid to hand over the author of the Irish Melodies adieu to Lord Morpeth and Almack's and go as a present to the Peerage. The "middling to prison. Moore had made friends in his class" has given us our poets, our philoso- progress, and now they ran to the rescue. phers, our discoverers-all that we value He took counsel of some of the wisest. Dr. most in our nationality all that has made Lushington advised the unfortunate registrar us what we are. Newton was the son of a to keep out of the way until he could make a small farmer Shakspeare of a woolstapler, compromise with the merchants. Somebody and Milton's father was a scrivener. It is an recoinmended Ireland as a good place for coninsult to the reader's understanding to insist | cealment, but Rogers thought better of France.

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Lady Grey's ball, which is always of the best kind," and, as a matter of course, so fashionable a character finds instant admittance to Almack's. Indeed, he is so constant a visitor at this exclusive entertainment that Lord Morpeth, meeting him "at the regular assembly" on the 25th of May, 1819, said to him " You and I live at Almack's." Moore records the observation in his diary, and we will be sworn he never wrote a line that gave him greater pleasure.

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Longmans come forward and offer to advance any sum in the way of business; the defalcations amount to 6,0007., and Leigh Hunt urges the instant opening of a public subscription. Perry thinks a private subscription more advisable, and cites the case of Charles James Fox as a precedent. Tom remembers that one of Fox's friends complained of that statesman's hauteur, though by God, he was one of those who gave 3007., towards his maintenance," and declines private subscription altogether. Rogers has no notion of Moore's making himself a slave to the booksellers, and offers 5007., saying that Power will give 5001. more. Offers still more munificent pour in. Lord John Russell, the present biographer, places at once at his friend's disposal all the profits of the future editions of his Life of Lord Russell," just published, and the authoress, whoever she may be, of "Come, Stella, arouse thee," full "of sorrow at my misfortune, offers the copyright of a volume of poems which she has ripe for publication." Strange creatures we are. In the midst of his agitation and alarm Moore dines at Hollandhouse. "I sang in the evening," he writes in his journal, and was rather glad I had an opportunity of making the Hollands feel a little what I could do in this way, for they never heard me properly before. Lady Holland, evidently much pleased, told me afterwards that my articulation was the most beautiful she had ever heard." Pity Tom cannot sing the disgusted merchants into a compromise, and make them "feel what he can do in that way." But the feat is not easy. Negotiations still go on. Lord Lansdowne and Lady Holland prefer Scotland to France. They think Holyrood-house will afford all needful protection, and the banishment will not be so complete. Mackintosh writes "You will find in Edinburgh as many friends and admirers as even you could find anywhere." Moore is puzzled, but prepares, at all events, for flight; he regulates his papers, destroys his letters, and makes his arrangements with his" darling Bessy, who bears all so sweetly, though she would give her eyes to go with me. Ilis mind is at length made up. He will fly to France; and Lord Lansdowne, who is going to Paris, will give him his company. Bessy and the little ones are to follow if the negotiations with the merchants are protracted. Time for leave-taking draws on. On the 17th of August Moore gives "a tea-drinking party" dancing and pianoforte in the evening. On Tom's health being drunk at supper, he "makes them a short speech, alluding to the probability of his soon being obliged to leave them, which drew tears from most of the Thrice happy Moore-commanding money from the men, sobs and tears from the women-privileged even in his mis

women."

fortune!

The second volume closes while Moore is in London, on the eve, we presume, of departure; but he lingers amid the fascinations of the metropolis-one night going to the Haymarket "to see Liston speak a speech on an ass ;" another, dining at Lady Blessington's; a third, "dining at a coffee-house in Spring-gardens, and thence to Astley's." When he has gone the usual round he will no doubt depart. Joy go with you, Thomas Moore! You are a mature man of forty years of age, but, be you in London, in Edinburgh, in Paris, or among the celestials, yours will still be a jocund soul, and communicate pleasure and delight to all the spirits that surround it.

From the Spectator.

THE PLAINT OF FREEDOM.* A QUARTO form, a handsome style of printing, and a generally expensive mode of "getting up," distinguish this volume, which appears without author's or publisher's name; the law, we believe, requires an acknowledged printer; who is found beyond the FinisNewcastle-upon-Tyne, imprinted by G. Bou chier Richardson." Yet there is nothing to require this mystery. The Plaint of Freedom is animated by poetical spirit; its sentiments are lofty, and of the old English heroic cast, when men willingly throw fortune and life into the balance of a high or worldly enterprise. The poetry will not be popular with

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the Manchester school" or "the Peace party," though some of them, by the by, seemed to favor a war for Hungary, or at least to hold language which if supported must have ended in war. The Plaint of Freedom contains opinions of extreme Republicanism, in relation to our great civil war and the execution of Charles the First, of which many may not approve. The only bit in the volume that could induce the author to prefer concealment, unless from whim or from some professional motive, are four stanzas on Paine, as author of "The Rights of Man."

The framework of the poem may be described as a complaint uttered by Freedom on the spiritless supineness of England at the present day, and the sordid spirit which possesses her people. In reality, it is a series of poems on English history, always having some reference to the great question of the defences, or rather to the truckling spirit that opposes their execution. After a few dedicatory stanzas to Milton, Freedom- or the poet addresses some Tyrtaan strains to England, provocative not only of a defensive but of a warlike feeling. In a series of poems not unlike the sonnet in singleness of subject and brevity, but of

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*The Plaint of Freedom. No Publisher's name.

different structure, the poet then runs over the leading men and events of English history ―as Caractacus, Alfred, Robin Hood, Magna Carta, the worthies of the Elizabethan and Commonwealth times; a general conclusion glancing at the present, but also dealing with the future, in the form of a prophecy on what a gallant and self-denying people might effect for mankind.

The form and metre of the work resemble Tennyson's" In Memorium." Something of the Laureate's manner there may also bepossibly imitated, with an occasional carelessness of versification, and sometimes a prosaic character, as well as a construction grammatically harsh. However, poetry is better judged of by specimen than by criticism. This is the opening picture of the actual state of the world.

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Their echoes break upon our coast
The isle that freedom loved so well:
But stir not Freedom's Sentinel,
Asleep on his neglected post.

Freedom, or the poet, proceeds as follows, with historical logic-for undoubtedly, in past times, the late commotions abroad would have seen England in the van of the strife but scarcely with sound reason, at least if this is to be read as an exhortation to offensive war, not to merely defensive preparations.

Of old my name had been a spell

To rouse thee from profoundest trance:
The shadow of a winged lance
Had warned thy slumber, ere it fell.

Then blazed upon thy haughtiest cliffs
My fires, reflected in the tide
Which gulfed the Armada's lofty pride -
Scattered before our English skiffs.

Yet higher soared the flame divine,
Whose rays illumined distant lands,
When Milton uttered my commands,
And Cromwell set his foot by mine.

But now no beacon marks thy shore;
The old, undaunted soul is fled :
White Land! canst thou be pale with dread
That Freedom needeth thee once more?

Why tarriest thou? Till sting of pain
Excite thy tamed Berserkir rage ;
Or till our foe cast down a gauge
Not even thy strength can lift again?

What waitest thou? Till Cossack feet

Spur thy slow courage; till the war
Our sires had led to Trafalgar
Back desperately from street to street?
Till London croucheth to its doom;

When strangers, stepping through our walls,
Chant French Te Deums in St. Paul's,
And pile their arms on Nelson's tomb ?
What sloth of heart, or brain, or limb,

What count of fears, what doubt of right, Hath hid thy spirit in this night, Whose clouds thy starriest honor dim? Can Wickliffe's heirs permit the Pope? May Cromwell's lieges court the Tsar? Or Alfred's lineage shrink from war, With shameful peace for only hope?

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Passages similar in power and passing application might be quoted from the opening and close, as well as from the historical stanOne will suffice as a specimen. It is the death of Sir Richard Grenville, an Elizabethan worthy, who singly and successfully resisted the whole fleet of Spain, and when his powder was spent, the greater part of his crew killed or wounded, and himself disabled,

commanded the master's gunner, whom he knew to be a most resolute man, to split and sink the ship, that thereby nothing might remain of glory or victory to the Spaniards."

SIR RICHARD GRENVILLE.

A hundred men for fifteen hours

Beat back ten thousand; morn shall see One bark defying fifty-three, And, shattered, foiling all their powers.

For warily distant in a ring

Spain's great armadas baffled lie:
Like dogs, far-watching till he die,
Around the dying forest king.
And "with a glad and quiet mind
Here die I Richard Grenville, who
Have done what I was bound to do,
Leaving a soldier's fame behind.”

A soldier's fame! What else, while Life
Must battle momently with Wrong?
Gird on thy sword, be true and strong
And God absolve thee from the strife!

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From the New York Daily Times.

nected with the contest; and as his pen takes

THE PICTORIAL FIELD-BOOK OF THE the narration from the trembling lips of these

ean,

REVOLUTION.

venerable partakers and witnesses, and transcribes their mouldy documents, his faithful and ready pencil transfers their features and figures to the enduring page. Thus we have fac-similes of the autographs of Washington and Jefferson, of Columbus and Cotton Mather, of Uncas and Brant, of Burgoyne and Gates, of Arnold and Andre, and of most of those stern men whose shoulders upheld the ark of qur liberty. Thus, too, their lineaments look out from these life-like pages, and even the deep wrinkles that a century had

republic. Accurate maps of battle-fields, and monuments that gratitude has erected to the memory of our heroes, the habitations that were the scenes of stirring interest, are here truthfully depicted.

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THIS rich quarry of historic wealth is now, in completed state, accessible to every Ameriand certainly every American should dig in its ample mines. Mr. Lossing has come to the rescue at the right period. Ten years more and it would have been too late. Every year or month was sweeping away some tenement around which gathered revolutionary associations, some ancient record or furrowed face, and which soon would have been lost forever to the world, but which are now se-worn in the cheeks of old John Battin, and eurely embalmed by the pen and pencil of this the frosts that time had sprinkled on his locks, artist author. Our countrymen were so ab- revealed the truthfulness of the artist's skill. sorbed in the present that they were forget- The benignant features of Pocahontas beam ting the past. Progress was striding over our with affection, and the countenances of Kosancient battlefields, regardless of the bones ciusco and Lafayette, of Montgomery and Putthat bleached beneath her feet. Agriculture nam, Stark, Wayne, Mercer, Marion, Sumter, drove her remorseless coulter through the and a host of others equally worthy of presermossy ramparts that once sheltered the gal-vation, show the reader what cast of men led lant heroes of our liberty. The time-honored our armies to victory in the heroic days of the structures that kept off the dew and the rain from many a patriot head, were tumbling indiscriminately before the blows of that improvement, which would destroy an association as ruthlessly as it would crush a weed. The mound, the wall, the ditch, that had witnessed the intensest suffering, the bravest endeavor, the most heroic defences and assaults, over which the whistling balls had cut the air, and almost yet echoing with the clang of battle and the shouts of victory, were yielding to friendly strokes what they refused to hostile arms, and surrendering their ancient forms to the desecrating plough. Why should they longer remain to remind a people of the struggles their freedom had cost? Wheat would not grow in the ditch, nor corn spring out of the wall. And in a country so crowded for room, hitting its elbows against the oceans as it turned round on its narrow base of sixty degrees of latitude, it could not afford to let an old tree stand, though its rough bark held the testimony of a terrible conflict, nor permit the remnants of a venerable fortification, to mark to the eye of posterity some spot hallowed with patriot blood. Rapidly, rapidly were these glorious mementos disappearing before the utilitarian spirit of the age, and oblivion would soon have rolled her waters over them all. But the time so often gives what its necessities require. A historian of a new stamp appears as he is wanted; not confining himself within the four walls of a library, nor satisfied with collating, in new forms, the researches of others, he sallies forth to a personal inspection of every scene of revolutionary interest; he searches out the hoary actors that yet remain; he follows their tottering steps over fields of slaughter; sketches the physical features that were con

But for this all would soon become vague; important localities intangible; indefiniteness would conceal our consecrated places, and the roads encrimsoned by the bleeding feet of our warriors their long marches and frosty bivouacs would, in many instances, become indistinct and legendary. Dates and localities are the eyes of history, through which its truths are made manifest and steadfast. As we read these clear and beautiful pages, we feel a sentiment of nationality glow in our veins, and look with honest pride upon those inflexible, upright physiognomies, and with melancholy interest upon those quaint old specimens of architecture that held the living, and upon those tombstones that protect and mark the sleeping-places of the illustrious dead. Our author does not believe that the antiquarian spirit should be devoted only to unfolding the mysterious ciphers that decorate the sarcophagus of an Egyptian princess; but he would seize those hieroglyphics of our past—those frail memorials, so swiftly crumbling into dust and enshrine them on his ample leaves; the record, the evidence, and the illustration of a great and triumphant struggle.

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Accordingly we see our historic pilgrim traversing and retraversing the broad field of the revolution - touching at every memorable place — in trackless forests amid mountain ridges over fruitful plains-pursuing the devious windings of rivers in thronging cities tracing the revolutionary relics, around which the multitude heedlessly tramped-in

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solitary walks hunting the footprints of our effect a large variety of subjects, it is without armies suddenly performing some distant precedent or compeer in American journalism. journey to save the impress of a fort or build-It comes nearer to our ideal of an American ing about to be defaced by sacrilegious hands, newspaper than anything before undertaken following wherever the progress of American on this continent. And yet there are serious story beckoned him-till, compassing more defects, not in the design, but in the executhan eight thousand miles, and transferring from fading reality to perpetual forms, many hundred cherished scenes and portraits, he consummates his interesting narrative of more than fourteen hundred large and compact pages, and gives the invaluable contribution to the descendants of those whose deeds he thus nobly commemorates and preserves.

These volumes are, hereafter, to perform an important part in educating the people in the details of American history. Certainly no work is so well calculated to lure the minds of the young through the different stages of the great drama of our independence. Uniting the two attractions of engaging narrative and pictorial representation, it interests the reader in a double sense, and will tend, we do not doubt, to imbue the generation now rising to manliness, with a deeper and fuller knowledge than it would else have had, of the labors, hardships, dangers and triumphs of the first sons of the republic.

In the modesty of his preface the author regrets that others, more competent, had not gone forth to this undertaking. But he is the competent man who does the work; and surely no one could have accomplished it with greater fidelity, truthfulness or skill, infused more freshness and vivacity into the current of his narrative, or poured out the enthusiastic devotion of a more thoroughly American heart. It was a task that indifference could not achieve. It required not merely the determination to write a book, but also the promptings of an ardent desire, a burning love of country, familiarity with her history, and an irresistible impulse to gather and preserve whatever might be subject to demolition or decay of all those things that could throw light upon, or that became memorable in the progress of this country from dependence to freedom. The patriotism that thus sacredly collects, guards and perpetuates the proof of American valor, is of the stamp that would perform deeds, themselves, worthy of record, when the time requires.

From the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser. THE NEW YORK TIMES.

WE have been waiting some time for an eligible opportunity to say a few words respecting this journal. It is about the best written paper in the country, and in point of intellectual labor, copiousness of information, general and comprehensive ability, and the power of handling gracefully and with fine

tion of the enterprise. The Times is frequently too abstract and magazinish; too fond of dissertation and disquisition; too much in the habit of settling controverted questions with an ex cathedra air; not sufficiently tolerant when its views are opposed, and at times both supercilious and pragmatical. It sometimes lacks candor, too; and we have known it to be exceedingly disingenuous and unfair in a controversial discussion. Then it is occasionally inconsiderate in mounting a popular hobby, and never gets off with grace when the creature is jaded or crippled-take the Kossuth furor for example. We doubt whether the Times, even now, when the whole thing has as little life as a collapsed tradition, does not regard the visionary Hungarian as a wiser, more discreet, and practical statesman, and possessing higher qualifications for building up a government than Alexander Hamilton. All these blemishes which disfigure the fair face of the Times, however, are incidental to the plan upon which it was established; inevitable, most of them, in the present state of journalism in this country, and the immature age of the paper. It is not to be denied that Raymond has made an enormous stride in the improvement and elevation of the press. He has subsidized more able pens, a greater amount of intellect, cultivation, and diversi fied knowledge, than was ever before dreamed of by an editor in the United States.

We have before referred to the attempt of Mr. Raymond, in founding the Times, to unite the currency of the cheap, or penny press, with the intellectual power of papers of superior pretensions and higher price. The experiment, thoroughly made, under the most favorable circumstances, proved unguecessful, and the result must be regarded as conclusive against the feasibility of the scheme. The circulation of a sheet so costly and so attractive as the Times was made from the start, must constitute a source of revenue to render the enterprise remunerative. The Sun is a profitable speculation at a cent a copy; for its great circulation attracts a large amount of advertisements, and the limited quantity of reading matter leaves ample room for their insertion. Besides, it costs very little to conduct the paper. The expense of the original matter furnished to the Times has always been enormous; and we apprehend that it will ever be found impossible to combine the features of extreme cheapness and commanding influence to one journal. When the Times, on entering upon

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