in this respect, is the last interview between Lear and his daughters, Goneril and Regan,-(and how wonderfully does Kean carry it through!)-the scene which ends with the horrid shout and cry with which he runs out mad from their presence, as if his very brain had taken fire. The last scene which we are allowed to have of Shakespeare's Lear, for the simply pathetic, was played by Kean with unmatched power. We sink down helpless under the oppressive grief. It lies like a dead weight upon our hearts. We are denied even the relief of tears; and are thankful for the shudder that seizes us when he kneels to his daughter in the deploring weakness of his crazed grief. It is lamentable that Kean should not be allowed to show his unequalled powers in the last scene of Lear, as Shakespeare wrote it; and that this mighty work of genius should be profaned by the miserable, mawkish sort of by-play of Edgar's and Cordelia's loves: Nothing can surpass the impertinence of the man who made the change, but the folly of those who sanctioned it. INFLUENCE OF HOME-FROM THe paper on DOMESTIC LIFE. Home gives a certain serenity to the mind, so that everything is well defined, and in a clear atmosphere, and the lesser beauties brought out to rejoice in the pure glow which floats over and beneath them from the earth and sky. In this state of mind afflictions come to us chastened; and if the wrongs of the world cross us in our door-path, we put them aside without anger. Vices are about us, not to lure us away, or make us morose, but to remind us of our frailty and keep down our pride. We are put into a right relation with the world; neither holding it in proud scorn, like the solitary man, nor being carried along by shifting and hurried feelings, and vague and careless notions of things, like the world's man. We do not take novelty for improvement, or set up vogue for a rule of conduct; neither do we despair, as if all great virtues had departed with the years gone by, though we see new vices, frailties, and follies taking growth in the very light which is spreading over the earth. Our safest way of coming into communion with mankind is through our own household. For there our sorrow and regret at the failings of the bad are in proportion to our love, while our familiar intercourse with the good has a secretly assimilating influence upon our characters. The domestic man has an independence of thought which puts him at ease in society, and a cheerfulness and benevolence of feeling which seem to ray out from him, and to diffuse a pleasurable sense over those near him, like a soft, bright day. As domestic life strengthens a man's virtue, so does it help to a sound judgment and a right balancing of things, and gives an integrity and propriety to the whole character. God, in his goodness, has ordained that virtue should make its own enjoyment, and that wherever a vice or frailty is rooted out, something should spring up to be a beauty and delight in its stead. But a man of a character rightly cast, has pleasures at home, which, though fitted to his highest nature, are common to him as his daily food; and he moves about his house under a continued sense of them, and is happy almost without heeding it. Women have been called angels, in love-tales and sonnets, till we have almost learned to think of angels as little better than woman. Yet a man who knows a woman thoroughly, and loves her truly,and there are women who may be so known and loved,-will find, after a few years, that his relish for the grosser pleasures is lessened, and that he has grown into a fondness for the intellectual and refined without an effort, and almost unawares. He has been led on to virtue through his pleasures; and the delights of the eye, and the gentle play of that passion which is the most inward and romantic in our nature, and which keeps much of its character amidst the concerns of life, have held him in a kind of spiritualized existence: he shares his very being with one who, a creature of this world, and with something of the world's frailties, is yet a Spirit still, and bright With something of an angel light. With all the sincerity of a companionship of feeling, cares, sorrows, and enjoyments, her presence is as the presence of a purer being, and there is that in her nature which seems to bring him nearer to a better world. She is, as it were, linked to angels, and in his exalted moments, he feels himself held by the same tie. We In the ordinary affairs of life, a woman has a greater influence over those near her than a man. While our feelings are, for the most part, as retired as anchorites, hers are in play lefore us. hear them in her varying voice; we see them in the beautiful and harmonious undulations of her movements, in the quick shifting hues of her face, in her eye, glad and bright, then fond and suffused; her frame is alive and active with what is at her heart, and all the outward form speaks. She seems of a finer mould than we, and cast in a form of beauty, which, like all beauty, acts with a moral influence upon our hearts; and as she moves about us, we feel a movement within which rises and spreads gently over us, harmonizing us with her own. And can any man listen to this,-Can his eye, by it, and made better! day after day, rest upon this, and he not be touched The dignity of a woman has its peculiar character; it awes more than that of man. His is more physical, bearing itself up with an energy of courage which we may brave, or a strength which we may struggle against; he is his own avenger, and we may stand the brunt. A woman's has nothing of this force in it; it is of a higher quality, and too delicate for mortal touch. RICHARD DABNEY. RICHARD DABNEY was born about 1787, in the county of Louisa, Virginia, of a family settled for several generations in that state, and which had, in early times of England, been Daubeney. Earlier still it is said to have been D'Aubigny or D'Aubigné, of France. His mother had been a Meriwether, aunt to Meriwether Lewis, who, with Captain Clarke, in Jefferson's presidency, explored the sources of the Missouri and the Rocky Mountains. Richard's father, Samuel Dabney, was a wealthy farmer and planter, with twelve children. None of them were regularly or thoroughly educated. Richard's instruction was but in the plainest rudiments of knowledge, till his sixteenth or eighteenth year, when he went to a school of Latin and Greek. In these languages he strode forward with great rapidity; learning in one or two years more than most boys learned in six. Afterwards he was an assistant teacher in a Richmond school. From the burning theatre of that city, in December, 1811, he barely escaped with life, receiving hurts which he bore with him to his grave. In 1812, however, he published in Richmond a thin duodecimo volume of Poems, Original and Translated, which, though of some merit, mortifyingly failed with the public, and he then endeavored to suppress the edition. Going to Philadelphia with general undefined views to literary pursuits, he published, through Mathew Carey, a much improved edition of his poems in 1815. This too was, as the publisher said, "quite a losing concern." Yet it had pieces remarkable for striking and vigorous thought; and the diversity of translation (from Grecian, Latin, and Italian poets) evinced ripeness of scholarship and correctness of taste. In the mechanical parts of poetry-in rhythm and in rhymes he was least exact. Nearly half the volume consisted of translations. A short one from Sappho is not inelegant, or defective in versification: I cannot 'tis in vain to try- Dabney was said to have written a large portion of Carey's "Olive Branch, or Faults on Both Sides," designed to show how flagrantly both of the great parties (Federal and Republican) had sinned against their country's good, and against their own respective principles, whenever party interests or party rage commanded. In a few years more he returned to his native place, where his now widowed mother, with some of her children, lived upon her farm. Here he spent the rest of his life; in devouring such books and periodicals as he could find-in visits among a few of the neighboring farmers-and in such social enjoyments as rural Virginia then afforded, in which juleps and grog-drinking made a fearfully large part. Dabney had become an opium-eater, led on, it seems, by prescriptions of that poison for some of his injuries in the burning theatre. To this he added strong drink; and in his last years he was seldom sober when the means of intoxication were at hand. Some friends who desired to see his fine classical attainments turned to useful account, prevailed upon him to take a school of five or six boys, and that pursuit he continued nearly to the last. During his country life, in 1818, was published a poem of much classic beauty, called "Rhododaphne, or the Thessalian Spell," which was attributed to Dabney by a Richmond Magazine, but he always denied the authorship; and Carey the publisher, in a letter dated 1827, says, "It was an English production, as my son informs me." Dabney died in November, 1825, at the age of thirty-eight; prominent among the myriads to whom the drinking usages of America have made appropriate the deep self-reproach We might have won the meed of fame, The prevailing traits of his mind were memory and imagination. His excellence was only in li terature. For mathematics and the sciences he had no strong taste. He was guileless, and had warm affections, which he too guardedly abstained from displaying, as he carried his dislike of courtliness and professions to the opposite extreme of cynicism.* YOUTH AND AGE. 1. As numerous as the stars of heaven, Are the fond hopes to mortals given; But two illume, with brighter ray, The morn and eve of life's short day. 2. Its glowing tints, on youth's fresh days, And bids its opening joys declare That all its minutes, all its hours Shall breathe of pleasure's sweetest flowers But false the augury of that star The Lord of passion drives his car, Swift up the middle line of heaven, And blasts each flower that hope had given. 3. Its gentle beams, on man's last days, It points with slow, receding light, THE TRIBUTE. When the dark shades of death dim the warrior's eyes, When the warrior's spirit from its martial form flies, The proud rites of pomp are performed at his grave, And the pageants of splendor o'er its cold inmate wave; Though that warrior's deeds were for tyrants performed, And no thoughts of virtue that warrior's breast warmed, Though the roll of his fame is the record of death, And the tears of the widow are wet on his wreath. What then are the rites that are due to be paid, To the virtuous man's tomb, and the brave warrior's shade! To him, who was firm to his country's love? To him whom no might from stern virtue could move? Be his requiem, the sigh of the wretched bereft; We are indebted for this sketch of Richard Dabney to a gentleman of Virginia, Lucian Minor, Esq., of Louisa County. + Col. E. Carrington, a revolutionary patriot, who died in the autumn of 1810, in Richmond, Virginia. AN EPIGRAM, IMITATED FROM ARCHIAS. Nos decebat O wise was the people that deeply lamented And wise was the people that deeply delighted, When death snatched its victim from life's cheerless day; For then, all the clouds, life's views that benighted, They believed, at his touch, vanished quickly away. Life, faithless and treach'rous, is for ever presenting, To our view, flying phantoms we never can gaia; Life, cruel and tasteless, is for ever preventing All our joys, and involving our pleasure in vain. Death, kind and consoling, comes calmly and lightly, The balm of all sorrow, the cure of all ill, And after a pang, that but thrills o'er us slightly, All then becomes tranquil, all then becomes still. NATHANIEL H. CARTER. NATHANIEL H. CARTER was born at Concord, New Hampshire, September 17, 1787. He was educated at Exeter academy and Dartmouth College, and on the completion of his course became a teacher at Salisbury, New Hampshire, whence he soon after removed to take a similar charge at Portland, Maine. In 1817 he was appointed professor of languages in the University created by the state legislature at Dartmouth, where he remained until the institution was broken up by a decision of the Supreme Court, when he removed to New York. In 1819 he became editor of the Statesman, a newspaper of the Clintonian party. In 1824 he delivered a poem at Dartmouth College before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, entitled The Pains of the Imagination. In the following year he visited Europe, and wrote home letters descriptive of his travels to the Statesman, which were republished in other journals throughout the country. On his return in the spring of 1827 he published these letters, revised and enlarged, in two octavo volumes,* which were favorably received. In consequence of ill health he passed the following winter in Cuba, and on his return in the spring abandoned, for the same reason, the editorial profession. In the fall of 1829 he was invited by a friend residing in Marseilles to accompany him on a voyage to that place. While on shipboard, believing that his last hour was approaching, he wrote some lines entitled The Closing Scene, or the Burial at Sea. He survived, however, until a few days after his arrival, in December, 1829. Mr. Carter's letters furnish a pleasing and somewhat minute account of the objects of interest in an ordinary European tour, at the period of its publication much more of a novelty than at present. His poems were written from time to time Letters from Europe, comprising the Journal of a Tour through England, Scotland, France, Italy, and Switzerland, in the years 1825, 26, and 27. By N. H. Carter. New York: 1827. 2 vols. 8vo. on incidents connected with his feelings, studies, and travels, and are for the most part simply reflective. ISAAC HARBY. ISAAC, the son of Solomon Harby, was the grandson of a lapidary of the Emperor of Morocco, who fled to England, and married an Italian lady. His son Solomon settled in Charleston, S. C., where Isaac was born in 1788. He was educated under the care of Dr. Best, a celebrated teacher of those days. He commenced, but soon abandoned the study of the law, and the support of his mother and the rest of his family falling upon him in consequence of the death of his father, he opened a school on Edisto Island, which met with success. His taste for literature and facility in writing soon brought him in connexion with the press. He became the editor of a weekly journal, the "Quiver," and after its discontinuance of the "Investigator" newspaper, the title of which he changed to the "Southern Patriot," in which he supported the administration of Madison. He became widely and favorably known as a newspaper writer, especially in the department of theatrical criticism. In 1807, his play of the Gordian Knot, or Causes and Effects, was produced at the Charleston Theatre, where he had previously offered another five act piece, Alexander Severus, which was declined. It was played but a few times. In 1819, Alberti, a five act play by the same author, appeared with better success. It was published soon after its performance. In 1825 he delivered an address in Charleston, before the "Reformed Society of Israelites," advocating the addition of a sermon and services in English to the Hebrew worship of the Synagogue. In June, 1828, Harby removed from Charleston to New York, his object being to secure a larger audience for his literary labors. He contributed to the Evening Post and other city periodicals, and was fast acquiring an influential position, when his career was interrupted by his death, on the fourteenth of November, 1828. A selection from his writings was published at Charleston in the following year, in one volume octavo.* It contains his play of Alberti, Discourse before the Reformed Society of Israelites, and a number of political essays, with literary and theatrical criticisms, selected from his newspaper writings. Alberti is founded upon the history of Lorenzo de Medici, and designed to vindicate his conduct from "the calumnies of Alfieri in his tragedy called The Conspiracy of the Pazzi." The drama is animated in action, and smooth in versification. WILLIAM ELLIOTT. WILLIAM ELLIOTT, the grandfather of the subject of our remarks, removed from Charleston nearly a century ago, sold his possessions in St. Paul's, and settled at Beaufort, where he intermarried with Mary Barnwell, grand-daughter of John Barnwell, * A Selection from the Miscellaneous Writings of the late Isaac Harby, Esq., arranged and published by Henry L. Pinckney and Abraham Moise, for the benefit of his family. To which is prefixed a memoir of his life, by Abraham Moise. distinguished first as the leader of the Tuscarora war, and afterwards as the agent of the colony in England, through whose representations the constitutions of Locke were abrogated, and the colony passed from the hands of the Lords Proprietors into those of the Crown. From this marriage descended three sons-William, Ralph, and Stephen. Ralph died without surviving issue. Stephen is the naturalist and scholar, previously noticed.* *William, the eldest, was born in 1761, received the rudiments of his education at Beaufort, and long before he had arrived at manhood joined in the patriotic struggle against the mother country, along with his uncles John, Edward, and Robert Barnwell. Enduring his full share of the hardships and perils of that period, he was dangerously wounded at the surprise on John's Island, was taken prisoner, and while yet a minor was held worthy of being immured in the prison-ship. His name will be found on the list of those worthies who signed the memorable letter to General Greene. At the close of the war, Mr. Elliott applied himself to repair the losses suffered by his paternal estate, through the ravages of the enemy, and approved himself an able administrator. Of remarkable public spirit, he devoted his energy, and to a large extent his purse, to the promotion of various institutions of charity, education, and public improvement, served with honor in both branches of the legislature, and died in 1808, when Senator from his native parish,-thus closing at the age of forty-eight a life of patriotic devotion, of untiring usefulness, and spotless integrity. He was married in 1787 to Phebe Waight, a lady of Beaufort, and their eldest son, William Elliott, the subject of this notice, was born in the same town on the 27th of April, 1788. The rudiments of his education were received in his native town. He there entered the Beaufort College (since merged into a grammar-school), whence he entered, ad eundem, after a two days' examination, the Sophomore Class at Cambridge. He was distinguished at that institution, having received the honor of an English oration at the Junior exhibition; and though forced to leave college at the end of that year from a dangerous attack of bronchitis, he received from the government the unsolicited compliment of an honorary degree. His father having died while he was at college, Mr. Elliott applied himself, on his return home, to the management of his estate. He was elected to the legislature, and served in both branches with credit; but from his liability to bronchial affections did not enter frequently into debate. In 1832, during the crisis of the Nullification fever, Mr. Elliott was a member of the Senate of South Carolina, and while unalterably opposed to a tariff of protection, as unequal and unjust to the Southern states, he denied that a nullification by a state was the proper remedy for the grievance. His constituents had come to think differently, and instructed him by a large majority to vote for the call of a convention, and in default of that, to vote for nullification of the tariff laws by the legislature. To this latter clause of their Ante, vol. 1. 601. instructions Mr. Elliott excepted, as fatal to the union and subversive of the government, and, were it otherwise, impossible for him to carry out; because in his view contradictory to his oath of office, which bound him to maintain and defend the constitution of this State and of the United States. He contended that the tariff acts, however oppressive, sprang from a power clearly granted in the constitution, with one only condition annexed, that of uniformity; and that while that condition was inviolate, no palpable violation of the constitution could be pretended, and no state therefore, by the terms of "the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions," could be warranted in nullifying them. These exceptions were not satisfactory to his constituents, who, after hearing them, renewed their instructions, whereupon he resigned his office of Senator. From this time forward he has devoted himself to agricultural pursuits, to rural sports, varying the even tenor of his life by occasional inroads into the domain of letters, by essays on agriculture, controversial papers on political economy, addresses before Agricultural Societies, contributions to the Southern Review; by the essays of "Piscator" and "Venator," since enlarged and embodied in "Carolina Sports;" by a Tragedy in blank verse, printed, not published; and by occasional poems, of which a few have seen the light, and which serve to show what he might have accomplished in that department had the kindly spur of necessity been applied, or had other auspices attended his life.* Mr. Elliott chose for the subject of his tragedy the Genoese conspiracy of Fiesco, in the management of which he has followed the narrative of DeRetz. He has handled the subject with freedom and spirit, in a mood of composition never lacking energy, though with more attention to eloquence than the finished accomplishments of verse. In one of the scenes with Fiesco, a conspirator is made to utter a glowing prediction of America. Not here look we for freedom: In that new world, by daring Colon given The passage is continued with a closing allusion to the American Union. 'Gainst this rock The tempest of invasion harmless beats, Doria thus apostrophizes the city over which he ruled. Watchmen of Genoa! is the cry, all's well? Carolina Sports, by Land and Water; including Incidents of Devil Fishing, &c. By the Hon. Wm. Elliott of Beaufort, S. C. Charleston: 1856. 12mo. pp. 172. Fiesco; a Tragedy, by an American. New York: Printed for the author. 1850. 12mo. pp. 64. Address delivered by special request before the St. Paul's Agricultural Society, May, 1850. Published by the Society. Charleston: 1850. (Cursed beyond all, but her who slew her lord,) Rent were thy chains, and Freedom waved her wand Nor Guelph; disturb thee with new tragedies. Mr. Elliott's prose sketches of the piscatory scenes of his ocean vicinity are clever Sporting Magazine papers, lively and picturesque; with a speciality of the author's own in the gigantic game with which he has identified himself of the Devil Fishing of Port Royal Sound. The following will show the quality of the sport. I had left the cruising ground but a few days, when a party was formed, in July, 1844, to engage in this sport. Nath. Heyward, Jun., J. G. Barnwell, E. B. Means, and my son, Thos. R. S. Elliott, were respectively in command of a boat each, accompanied by several of their friends. While these boats were lying on their oars, expecting the approach of the fish, one showed himself far ahead, and they all started from their several stations in pursuit. It was my son's fortune to reach him first. His harpoon had scarcely pierced him, when the fish made a demivault in the air, and, in his descent, struck the boat violently with one of his wings. Had he fallen perpendicularly on the boat, it must have been crushed, to the imminent peril of all on board. As it happened, the blow fell aslant upon the bow,-and the effect was to drive her astern with such force, that James Cuthbert, Esq., of Pocotaligo, who was at the helm, was pitched forward at full length on the platform. Each oarsman was thrown forward beyond the seat he occupied; and my son, who was standing on the forecastle, was projected far beyond the bow of the boat. He fell, not into the sea, but directly upon the back of the Devil-fish, who lay in full sprawl on the surface. For some seconds Tom lay out of water, on this veritable Kraken, but happily made his escape without being entangled in the cordage, or receiving a parting salute from his formidable wings. My son was an expert swimmer, and struck off for the boat. The fish meantime had darted beneath, and was drawing her astern. My henchman Dick, who was the first to recover his wits, tossed overboard a coil of rope and extended an oar, the blade of which was seized by my son, who thus secured his retreat to the boat. He had no sooner gained footing in it, than, standing on the forecastle, he gave three hearty cheers, and thus assured his companions of his safety. They, meantime, from their several boats, had seen his perilous situation, without the chance of assisting him;-their oarsmen, when ordered to pull ahead, stood amazed or stupefied, and dropping their oars and jaws, cried out, "Great king! Mass Tom overboard!!" So intense was their curiosity to see how the affair would end, that they entirely forgot how much might depend on their own efforts. Could they have rowed and looked at the same time, it would have been all very well; but to turn their backs on such a pageant, every incident of which they were so keenly bent on observing, was expecting too much from African forethought and self-possession! In a few minutes, my son found himself surrounded by his companions, whose boats were closely grouped around. They threw themselves into action, with a vivacity which showed that they were disposed to punish the fish for the insolence of his attack,--they allowed him but short time for shrift, and, forcing him to the surface, filled his body with their resentful weapons, then, joining their forces, drew him rapidly to the shore, and landed him, amidst shouts and cheerings, at Mrs. Elliott's, Hilton Head. He measured sixteen feet across! To this we may add the striking introduction of General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney's island residence in an account of another fishing excursion in the sound. A third fishing-line was formerly drawn by placing the last pines on the Hilton Head beach in range with the mansion-house of Gen. C. C. Pinckney, on Pinckney Island. But this mansion no longer exists: it was swept away in one of the fearful hurricanes that vex our coast! To this spot, that sterling patriot and lion-hearted soldier retired from the arena of political strife, to spend the evening of his days in social enjoyment and literary relaxation. On a small island, attached to the larger one, which bears his name, and which, jutting out into the bay, afforded a delightful view of the ocean, he fixed his residence! There, in the midst of forests of oak, laurel and palmetto, the growth of centuries, his mansion-house was erected. There stood the laboratory, with its apparatus for chemical experiments,the library, stored with works of science in various tongues; there bloomed the nursery for exotics; and there was found each other appliance, with which taste and intelligence surround the abodes of wealth. It is melancholy to reflect on the utter destruction that followed; even before the venerable proprietor had been gathered to his fathers! The ocean swallowed up everything: and it is literally true, that the sea monster now flaps his wings over the very spot where his hearth-stone was placed,— where the rites of an elegant hospitality were so unstintedly dispensed,--and where the delighted guest listened to many an instructive anecdote, and unrecorded yet significant incident of the revolutionary period, as they flowed from the cheerful lips of the patriot. It argues no defect of judgment in Gen. Pinckney, that he lavished such expense on a situation thus exposed. In strong practical sense he was surpassed by no man. It was, in truth, his characteristic. He built where trees of a century's growth gave promise of stability; but, in our Southern Atlantic borders, he who builds strongest, does not build on rock,-for among the shifting sands of our coast, old channels are closed, and new ones worn, by the prevailing winds and currents, through |