and also Lotus-Eating, a Summer Book; and the same year he became connected with "Putnam's Magazine," and wrote that series of brilliant satiric sketches of society called The Potiphar Papers, which were afterwards collected and published in a volume. In the winter of 1853, Mr. Curtis entered the field as a lecturer, and was invited to lecture in different parts of the country. His success was ali that his most ardent friends could desire; for, to a most graceful and finished style, a pure taste, and a fine fancy, he adds a gracefulness of delivery that gives to all bis public efforts a charm that captivates his audience. In 1854, he delivered a poem before a literary society at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. In 1856, he took a very active part in the "Fremont campaign," speaking constantly, through the summer, with great effect. Those who had the good fortune to hear any of these addresses will not soon forget them, uniting as they did the soundest argument to a chaste and brilliant oratory. In August of that year, he delivered an oration before the literary societies of Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, on The Duty of the American Scholar to Politics and the Times. In the spring of 1856, Mr. Curtis did what it is never wise for a scholar to do,-risked all his means in mercantile business. In November of the same year, he was married to the daughter of Francis G. Shaw, eldest son of the late Robert G. Shaw, of Boston. In the spring of 1857, the house with which he was connected became embarrassed, and he was obliged to take an active part in the management of its affairs. But it was too late: the ship was too leaky; and in August, just at the beginning of the crisis, she went down with all on board. He lost his all; but, like Milton, he "did not bate One jot of heart or hope," but is now nobly recovering himself with his pen and living voice. JERUSALEM OR ROME? To any young man, or to any man in whose mind the glow of poetic feeling has not yet died into "the light of common day," the first view of a famous city is one of the memorable epochs of life. Even if you go directly from common-place New York to common-sense London, you will awake in the night with a hushed feeling of awe at being in Shakspeare's city, and Milton's, and Cromwell's. More agreeable to your mood is the heavy moulding of the banqueting-room of Whitehall than the crystal splendors of the palace in the park. Because over the former the dusk of historical distance is already stealing, removing it into the roman. tic and ideal realm. But more profound, because farther removed from the criticism of contemporary experience, is the interest of the Italian cities. They represent characteristic epochs of human history. Rome, Florence, Venice, are not names merely, but ideas. They were the capitals of power that in various ways and degrees ruled the world. Deeper still is the feeling that hallows the cities beyond Italy, -for beyond Italy are Athens and Jerusalem. Rome, Athens, and Jerusalem,-the physical, the intellectual, and the moral, do we long doubt which is the greatest? The Art of Greece is still supreme. The Empire of Rome has never been rivalled. But the spirit which has inspired Art with a sentiment profounder than the Greek,-the Faith which has held sway subtler and more universal than the Roman, are they not the spirit and the faith that make Jerusalem, El Khuds, or the holy, because they were best illustrated and taught by a life whose influence commenced there? More cognate to ready sympathy, more appealing to the sensuous imagination, is the pomp of Imperial Rome, as, with camp-fires burning from the Baltic to the Euxine, and from farthest Euphrates to the Pillars of Hercules, its gorgeous confusion of barbaric splendor and Grecian elegance gleams athwart the past. Fascinated by that splendor, as by auroral fires streaming through the sky,-recognising the forms of its law, its society, and its speech inherent in his own,-marking over all historic lands and submerged in African solitudes the foot-prints of its triumphant march, the young student, revering in Rome the might of his own human genius, going out to possess the earth, reaches the gates of its metropolis with an ardor that merges in romance. Hence were hurled the thunderbolts that shook the world, and whose vibrations tremble yet. Hither comes the poet, the philosopher, the statesman, the scholar; and in no city of the world was there ever assembled so much human genius in every kind, and in every time, as in Rome. Yet against the claims of its superb Italian rival, what has the Syrian city to show? Not Solomon in all his glory; for Hadrian was more magnificent, if less wise. Nor the visible career of the Jews, whose empire was greatest under Solomon, but was then only a part of a later Roman province. Jerusalem does not rival Rome with the imperial pomp of its recollections, nor by its artistic achievements, -for its only notable remains are part of the foundation of Solomon's Temple, while the most imposing ruins of Syria are the Roman relics of Palmyra and Baalbec. Nay, Rome came from Italy, and, scattering the Jews, destroyed Jerusalem. To the myriads of men who throng whole centuries of history, -as Xerxes' army the plains of Greece, headed by the eagle and asserting Rome, Jerusalem opposes a single figure, bearing a palm-branch, and riding upon an ass into the golden gate of the city. That palm is the magic wand which shall wave the discordant world into harmony; that golden gate is the symbol of the way which only he can enter who knows the magic of the palm. That single figure is the most eminent in history. The highest hope of Art is to reveal his beauty,-the sublimest strains of Literature are the prophecies and records of his career,—the struggle of Society is to plant itself upon the truth he taught. In the vision of the Past, as upon an infinite battle-field, that single figure meets the might of Rome, and the skill of Greece, and the wit of Egypt, and the flame of their glory is paled before his glance. He rode in at the golden gate, and was crucified between thieves. But it is the victim which consecrates the city. In vain the heroism of the Republic and the purple splendor of the Emperor would distract imagination and give a deeper charm to Rome. The cold auroral fires stream anew to the zenith, as we sit in the starlight at the tent-door. But a planet burns through them brighter than they; and we no longer discuss which city we approach with the profoundest interest. THE DUTY OF THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR.1 Do you ask me our duty as scholars? Gentlemen, thought, which the scholar represents, is life and liberty. There is no intellectual or moral life without liberty. Therefore, as a man must breathe and see before he can study, the scholar must have liberty, first of all; and as the American scholar is a man and has a voice in his own government, so his interest in political affairs must precede all others. He must build his house before he can live in it. He must be a perpetual inspiration of freedom in politics. He must recognise that the intelligent exercise of political rights, which is a privilege in a monarchy, is a duty in a republic. If it clash with his ease, his retirement, his taste, his study, let it clash, but let him do his duty. The course of events is incessant, and when the good deed is slighted, the had deed is done. Scholars, you would like to loiter in the pleasant paths of study. Every man loves his ease,-loves to please his taste. But into how many homes along this lovely valley came the news of Lexington and Bunker Hill, eighty years ago, and young men like us, studious, fond of leisure, young lovers, young husbands, young brothers, and sons, knew that they must forsake the wooded hill 1 From an oration delivered on Tuesday, August 5, 1856, before the Literary Societies of Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut. side, the river-meadows, golden with harvest, the twilight walk along the river, the summer Sunday in the old church, parents, wife, child, mistress, and go away to uncertain war. Putnam heard the call at his plough, and turned to go, without waiting. Wooster heard it, and obeyed. Not less lovely in those days was this peaceful valley, not less soft this summer air. Life was dear, and love as beautiful, to those young men as it is to us, who stand upon their graves. But, because they were so dear and beautiful, those men went out, bravely to fight for them and fall. Through these very streets they marched, who never returned. They fell, and were buried; but they can never die. Not sweeter are the flowers that make your valley fair, not greener are the pines that give your river its name, than the memory of the brave men who died for freedom. And yet no victim of those days, sleeping under the green sod of Connecticut, is more truly a martyr of Liberty than every murdered man whose bones lie bleaching in this summer sun upon the silent plains of Kansas. Gentlemen, while we read history, we make history. Because our fathers fought in this great cause, we must not hope to escape fighting. Because, two thousand years ago, Leonidas stood against Xerxes, we must not suppose that Xerxes was slain, nor, thank God, that Leonidas is not immortal. Every great crisis of human history is a pass of Thermopyla, and there is always a Leonidas and his three hundred to die in it, if they cannot conquer. And so long as Liberty has one martyr, so long as one drop of blood is poured out for her, so long from that single drop of bloody sweat of the agony of humanity shall spring hosts as countless as the forest-leaves, and mighty as the sea. Brothers! the call has come to us. I bring it to you in these calm retreats. I summon you to the great fight of Freedom. I call upon you to say, with your voices, whenever the occasion offers, and with your votes, when the day comes, that upon these fertile fields of Kansas, in the very heart of the continent, the upas-tree of slavery, dripping death-dews upon national prosperity and upon free labor, shall never be planted. I call upon you to plant there the palm of peace, the vine and the olive of a Christian civilization. I call upon you to determine whether this great experiment of human freedom, which has been the scorn of despotism, shall, by its failure, be also our sin and shame. I call upon you to defend the hope of the world. The voices of our brothers who are bleeding, no less than of our fathers who bled, summon us to this battle. Shall the children of unborn generations, clustering over that vast Western empire, rise up and call us blessed, or cursed? Here are our Marathon and Lexington; here are our heroic fields. good men beat with us. The fight is fierce God. But God is good. The hearts of all the issue is with RICHARD HENRY STODDARD. RICHARD HENRY STODDARD was born in Hingham, Massachusetts, on the 2d of July, 1825. His father, who was a sea-captain, sailed for Gottenburg when our author was about a year old, and the vessel was never after heard of. In 1835, his mother, who had married again, removed to New York, where he has resided ever since. When he was old enough to do any thing for himself, he went into a lawyer's office and copied law-papers; but, not liking this, he afterwards went into an iron-foundry, where he worked six years in learning the trade of an iron-moulder. Here he began to write verses, and, soon after the "Union Magazine" (afterwards Sartain's) was started, he became, in 1847, a contributor to it. He now commenced his literary career, publishing, in 1848, a small volume of poetry, entitled Footprints, and writing for various magazines,-the "Knickerbocker," "Putnam's Monthly," "Graham's," and the "International." In the fall of 1851, a second volume was brought out by Ticknor & Fields, entitled simply Poems, which consisted of his contributions to the above-mentioned magazines. About this time he was appointed to a situation in the New York Custom-House, and in the next year (1852) he gave to the public a volume of very sweet poetic prose, entitled Adventures in Fairy-Land, and in the autumn of the same year he was married to Miss Elizabeth D. Barston, of Mattapoisett, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, herself a poetess of very decided merit. In 1856 appeared Songs of Summer,' in which are some short pieces of exquisite beauty. Mr. Stoddard is still in the Custom-House in New York,-a location, one would think, not very near Parnassus; yet he continues to devote his leisure moments to poetry and general literature,-with what success the following beautiful pieces show. HYMN TO THE BEAUTIFUL. My heart is full of tenderness and tears, And tears are in mine eyes, I know not why; My youth is gone, but that I heed not now; My love is dead, or worse than dead can be; 'Bee his Dedication to Songs of Summer, under George H. Boker, p. 745. |