YOUNG ROSALIE LEE

I love to forget ambition,

And hope, in the mingled thought Of valley, and wood, and meadow,

Where, whilome, my spirit caught Affection's holiest breathings

Where under the skies, with me
Young Rosalie roved, aye drinking
From joy's bright Castaly.

I think of the valley and river,
Of the old wood bright with blossoms;
Of the pure and chastened gladness
Upspringing in our bosoms.

I think of the lonely turtle

So tongued with melancholy; Of the hue of the drooping moonlight, And the starlight pure and holy.

Of the beat of a heart most tender,
The sigh of a shell-tinct lip
As soft as the land-tones wandering
Far leagues over ocean deep;
Of a step as light in its falling

On the breast of the beaded lea As the fall of the faery moonlight On the leaf of yon tulip tree.

Jno Esten leone.

riod gained him the attention of the public. He was born in Winchester, Frederick county, Virginia, November 3, 1830. When a year or more old, his father took up his residence on his estate of Glengary, near Winchester, whence, on the burning of the house in 1839, the family removed to Richmond. Mr. Cooke's first publication, if we except a few tales and sketches contributed to Harpers' and Putnam's Magazines, the Literary World, and perhaps other journals, was entitled, Leather Stocking and Silk, or Hunter John Myers and his Times, a Story of the Valley of Virginia, from the press of the Harpers in 1854. The chief character, the hunter, is drawn from life, and is a specimen of manly, healthy, mountain nature, effectively introduced in the gay dcmestic group around him. This was immediately followed by the Youth of Jefferson, or a Chrenicle of College Scrapes, at Williamsburgh, in Viginia, A.D. 1764. The second title somewhat qualifies the serious purport of the first, which might lead the reader to look for a work of biography; but in fact, the book, with perhaps a meagre hint or two of tradition, is a fanciful view of a gayer period than the present, with the full latitude of the writer of fiction. Love is, of course, a prominent subject of the story, and is tenderly and chivalrously handled. Scarcely ad these books made their appearance, almost sin ultaneously, when a longer work from the same, as

yet anonymous, source, was announced in The Virginia Comedians, or Old Days in the Old Dominion, edited from the MSS. of C. Effingham, Esq. It is much the largest, and by far the best of the author's works thus far. The scene

has the advantage of one of the most capable regions of romance in the country, the life and manners of Virginia in the period just preceding the Revolution, combining the adventure of woodland and frontier life with the wealth and luxury of the sea-board. We are introduced to one of the old manorial homesteads on James river, where the dramatis personæ have little else to do than to develope their traits and idiosyncrasies with a freedom fettered only by the rules of art and the will of the writer. The privilege is not suffered to pass unimproved. The whole book is redolent of youth and poetic susceptibility to the beauties of nature, the charms of woman, and the quick movement of life. Some liberties are taken with historical personages-there is a flitting study of Patrick Henry in a certain shrewd man in an old red cloak; Parson Tag has doubtless had his parallel among the high living clergy and stage manager Hallam we know existed, though we trust with very different attributes from those to which the These necessity of the plot here subjects him.

are all, however, but shadowy hints; the author's active fancy speedily carrying him beyond literal realities. In its purely romantic spirit, and the variety and delicacy of its portraitures of the sex, the Virginia Comedians is a work of high merit and promise. The success of this work induced Mr. Cooke to avow his authorship, and take the benefit in literature of his growing reputation, though still devoted to his profession of the law.

A subsequent publication from his pen,-still another, we believe, is announced,-is entitled Ellie, or the Human Comedy, a picture of life in the old sense of the word, a representation of manners. It is a novel of the sentimental school of the day, contrasting high and low life in the city -the scene is laid at Richmond-a young girl, who gives name to the book, furnishing the sunbeam to the social life in which she is cast. In this portrait of girlish life, the writer, as he tells us, "has tried to show how a pure spirit, even though it be in the bosom of a child, will run through the variegated woof of that life which surrounds it, like a thread of pure gold, and that all who come in contact with it, will carry away something to elevate and purify them, and make then better." The character is in a mood in which the author has been most successful.

The most noticeable characteristic of Mr. Cooke's style is its gay, happy facility-the proof of a generous nature. It carries the reader, in these early works, lightly over any defects of art, and provides for the author an easy entrance to the best audience of the novelist, youth and womanhood.

when? King Arthur ever is to come: Odin will one day wind his horn and clash his wild barbaric cymbals through the Nordland pines as he returns, but not in our generation: Balder will rise from sleep and shine again the white sun god on his world. But always these things will be: Arthur and the rest are meanwhile sleeping.

Romance is history: the illustration may be lame -the truth is melancholy. Because the men whose memories hold this history will not speak, it dies away with them! the great past goes deeper and deeper into mist: becomes finally a dying strain of music, and is no more remembered for ever.

Thinking these thoughts I have thought it well to set down here some incidents which took place on Virginia soil, and in which an ancestor of my family had no small part: to write my family romance in a single word, and also, though following a connecting thread, a leading idea, to speak briefly of the period to which these memories, as I may call them, do attach.

That period was very picturesque: illustrated and adorned, as it surely was, by such figures as one seldom sees now on the earth. Often in my evening reveries, assisted by the partial gloom resulting from the struggles of the darkness and the dying firelight, I endeavor, and not wholly without success, to summon from their sleep these stalwart cavaliers, and tender graceful dames of the far past. They rise before me and glide onward-manly faces, with clear eyes and lofty brows, and firm lips covered with the knightly fringe: soft, tender faces, with bright eyes and gracious smiles and winning gestures; all the life and splendor of the past again becomes incarnate! How plain the embroidered doublet, and the sword-belt, and the powdered hair, and hat adorned with its wide floating feather! How real are the ruffled breasts and hands, the long-flapped waistcoats, and the buckled shoes! And then the fairer forms: they come as plainly with their looped-back gowns all glittering with gold and silver flowers, and on their heads great masses of curls with pearls interwoven! See the gracious smiles and musical movement-all the graces which made those dead dames so attractive to the outward eye-as their pure faithful natures made them priceless to the eyes of the heart.

If fancy needed assistance, more than one portrait hanging on my walls might afford it. Old family portraits which I often gaze on with a pensive pleasure. What a tender maiden grace beams on me from the eyes of Kate Effingham yonder; smiling from the antique frame and blooming like a radiant summer-she was but seventeen,when it was taken -under the winter of her snow-like powder, and bright diamond pendants, glittering like icicles! The canvas is discolored, and even cracked in places, but the little place laughs merrily still-the eyes fixed peradventure upon another portrait hanging opposite. This is a picture of Mr. William Effingham, the brave soldier of the Revolution, taken in his younger days, when he had just returned from college. He is most preposterously dressed in flowing periwig and enormous ruffles; and his coat is heavy with embroidery in gold thread: he is a handsome young fellow, and excepting some pomposity in his air, a simple-looking, excellent, honest face.

Over my fireplace, however, hangs the picture which I value most-a portrait of my ancestor, Champ Effingham, Esq. The form is lordly and erect; the face clear and pale; the eyes full of wondrous thought in their far depths. The lips are chiselled with extraordinary beauty, the brow noble and imaginative-the whole face plainly giving in

dication of fiery passion, and no less of tender softness. Often this face looks at me from the canvas, and I fancy sometimes that the white hand, covered as in Vandyke's pictures with its snowy lace, moves from the book it holds and raises slowly the forefinger and points toward its owner's breast. The lips then seem to say, "Speak of me as I was: nothing extenuate: set down nought in malice!"-then the fire-light leaping up shows plainly that this all was but a dream, and the fine pale face is again only canvas, the white hand rests upon its book:my dream ends with a smile.

EPILOGUE.

It was one of those pure days which, born of spring, seem almost to rejoice like living things in the bright flowers and tender buds:-and she was failing.

All the mountain winds were faintly blowing on the smiling trees, and on the white calm brow of one who breathed the pure delightful airs of opening spring, before she went away to breathe the airs of that other land, so far away, where no snows come, or frost, or hail, or rain; but spring reigns ever, sublimated by the light which shines on figures in white garments round the central throne.

She heard those figures calling, calling, calling, with their low soft voices full of love and hope; calling ever to her in the purple twilight dying o'er the world; rejoicing every one that she was coming.

She looked upon the faces seen through mist around her, and besought them smiling, not to weep for her, but look to the bright land where she was going for her faith was strong. She begged them to take tender care of the flower which lay but now upon her bosom, and not think of her. A voice had told her in the night that she was waited for: and now the sun was fading in the west, and she must go.

Alcestis-like she kissed them on their brows and pointed to the skies: the time had almost come.

She looked with dim faint eyes, as in a dream, upon that past which now had йowed from her and left her pure:-she saw the sunset wane away and die above the rosy headlands, glooming fast:-she murmured that her hope was steadfast ever; that she heard the angels; that they called to her, and bade her say farewell to all that was around her on this earth, for now the expected time had come.

The tender sunset faded far away, and over the great mountains drooped the spangled veil, with myriads of worlds all singing as her heart was singing now. She saw the rosy flush go far away, and die away, and leave the earth and then the voice said Come!

She saw a cross rise from the far bright distance, and a bleeding form: she saw the heavenly vision slowly move, and ever nearer, nearer, brighter with the light of heaven. She saw it now before her, and her arms were opened. The grand eternal stars came out above-the sunset died upon her browshe clasped the cross close to her bosom-and so fell asleep.

THE DEATH OF A MOUNTAIN HUNTER-FROM LEATHER STOCKING AND SILK.

His thoughts then seemed to wander to times more deeply sunken in the past than that of the event his words touched on. Waking he dreamed; and the large eyes melted or fired with a thousand memories which came flocking to him, bright and joyous, or mournful and sombre, but all now transmuted by his almost ecstasy to one glowing mass of purest gold. He saw now plainly much that had been dark to him

before; the hand of God was in all, the providence of that great almighty being in every autumn leaf which whirled away!

Again, with a last lingering look his mental eyes surveyed that eventful border past, so full of glorious splendor, of battle shocks, and rude delights; so full of beloved eyes, now dim, and so radiant with those faces and those hearts now cold; again leaving the present and all around him, he lived for a moment in that grand and beauteous past, instinct for him with so much splendor and regret.

But his dim eyes returned suddenly to those much loved faces round him; and those tender hearts were overcome by the dim, shadowy look.

The sunset slowly waned away, and falling in red splendor on the old gray head and storm-beaten brow, lingered there lovingly and cheerfully. The old hunter feebly smiled.

"You'll be good girls," he murmured wistfully, drawing his feeble arm more closely round the children's necks, "remember the old man, darlin's!"

Caroline pressed her lips to the cold hand, sobbirg. Alice did not move her head, which, buried in the counterpane, was shaken with passionate sobs.

*

The Doctor felt his pulse and turned with a mournful look to his brother. Then came those grand religious consolations which so smoothe the pathway to the grave; he was ready-always— God be thanked, the old man said; he trusted in the Lord.

And so the sunset waned away, and with it the life and strength of the old storm-beaten mountaineer -so grand yet powerless, so near to death yet so very cheerful.

I'm goin'," he murmured, as the red orb touched the mountain, I'm goin', my darlin's; I always loved you all, my children. Darlin', don't cry," he murmured feebly to Alice, whose heart was near breaking, "don't any of you cry for me."

The old dim eyes again dwelt tenderly on the lov ing faces, wet with tears, and on those poor trembling lips. There came now to the aged face of the rude mountaineer, an expression of grandeur and majesty, which illumined the broad brow and eyes like a heavenly light. Then those eyes seemed to have found what they were seeking; and were abased. Their grandeur changed to humility, their light to shadow, their fire to softress and unspeakable love. The thin feeble hands, stretched out upon the cover, were agitated slightly, the eyes moved slowly to the window and thence returned to the dear faces weeping round the bed; then whispering:

"The Lord is good to me! he told me he was comin' 'fore the night was here; come! come-Lord Jesus-come!" the old mountaineer fell back with a low sigh-so low that the old sleeping hound dreamed

on.

The life strings parted without sound; and hunter John, that so long loved and cherished soul, that old strong form which had been hardened in so many storms, that tender loving heart-ah, more than all, that grand and tender heart-had passed as calmly as a little babe from the cold shadowy world to that other world; the world, we trust, of light, and love, and joy.

HORACE BINNEY WALLACE,

HORACE BINNEY WALLACE, the son of John B. Wallace, an eminent lawyer of Philadelphia, was born in that city, February 26, 1817. The first two years of his collegiate course were passed at the University of Pennsylvania, and the remain

ing portion at Princeton College, where he was graduated in 1835. He studied with great thoroughness the science of the law, and at the age of twenty-seven contributed notes to Smith's Selections of Leading Cases in various branches of the Law, White and Tudor's Selection of Leading Cases in Equity, and Decisions of American Courts in several departments of the Law, which have been adopted with commendation by the highest legal authorities.

His attention was, however, by no means confined to professional study. He devoted much time to scientific study, and projected several theories on subjects connected therewith.

Mr. Wallace published a number of articles anonymously in various periodicals. He was much interested in philosophical speculation, and bestowed much attention on the theory of Comte, by whom he was highly prized.

In April, 1849, Mr. Wallace sailed for Europe, and passed a year in England, Germany, France, and Italy. On his return he devoted himself with renewed energy to literary pursuits. He projected a series of works on commercial law, in the preparation of which he proposed to devote a year or two at a foreign university to the exclusive study of the civil law. In the spring of 1852 his eyesight became impaired, owing, as was afterwards discovered, to the incipient stages of congestion of the brain, produced by undue mental exertion. By advice of his physicians he embarked on the thirteenth of November for Liverpool. Finding no improvement in his condition on his arrival, he at once proceeded to Paris in quest of medical advice. His cerebral disease increased, and led to his death in that city on the sixteenth of December following.

In 1855 a volume was published in Philadelphia entitled, Art, Scenery, and Philosophy in Europe; Being Fragments from the Portfolio of the late Horace Binney Wallace, Esquire, of Philadelphia. It contains a series of essays on the principles of art, detailed criticisms on the principal European cathedrals, a few travelling sketches, papers on Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Fra-Bartolomeo, Perugino, and Raphael, and an article on Comte.

This was followed by a secondLiterary Criticisms-composed mostly of very youthful, and in all cases, of unacknowledged pieces.

These writings, though not designed for publication, and in many instances in an unfinished state, display great depth of thought, command of language, knowledge of the history as well as æsthetic principles of art, and finely cultivated taste. Occasional passages are full of poetic imagery, growing naturally out of enthusiastic admiration of the subject in hand. Some of the finest of these passages occur in the remarks on the Cathedral of Milan, a paper which, although endorsed by the writer" very unfinished," and no doubt capable of finer elaboration, is one of the best in the series of which it forms a portion.

THE INTERIOR OF ST. PETER'S.

What a world within Life's open world is the in terior of St. Peter's!-a world of softness, brightness, and richness!-fusing the sentiments in a refined rapture of tranquillity—gratifying the imagination with splendors more various, expansive, and exhaust

less than the natural universe from which we pass,— typical of that sphere of spiritual consciousness, which, before the inward-working energies of faith, arches itself out within man's mortal being. Whea you push aside the heavy curtain that veils the sanctuary from the world without, what a shower of high and solemn pleasure is thrown upon your spirit! A glory of beauty fills all the Tabernacle! The majesty of a Perfection, that seems fragrant of delightfulness, fills it like a Presence. Grandeur, strength, solidity,-suggestive of the fixed Infinite, -float unsphered within those vaulted spaces, like clouds of lustre. The immensity of the size,-the unlimitable richness of the treasures that have been lavished upon its decoration by the enthusiastic prodigality of the Catholic world through successive centuries,-dwarfs Man and the Present, and leaves the soul open to sentiments of God and Eternity. The eye, as it glances along column and archway, meets nothing but variegated marbles and gold. Among piers, are a multitude of pictures, vast in magnithe ornaments of the obscure parts of the walls and tude, transcendent in merit,-the master-pieces of the world, the communion of St. Jerome,-the Burial of St. Petronilla,-the Transfiguration of the Saviour, not of perishable canvass and oils, but wrought in mosaic, and fit to endure till Time itself shall perish.

No

It is the sanctuary of Space and Silence. throng can crowd these aisles; no sound of voices or of organs can displace the venerable quiet that broods here. The Pope, who fills the world with all

his

pompous retinue, fills not St. Peter's; and the roar of his quired singers, mingling with the sonorous chant of a host of priests and bishops, struggles for an instant against this ocean of stillness, and then is absorbed into it like a faint echo. The mightiest ceremonies of human worship,-celebrated by the earth's chief Pontiff, sweeping along in the magnificence of the most imposing array that the existing world can exhibit,-seem dwindled into insignificance within this structure. They do not explain to our feelings the uses of the building. you stand within the gorgeous, celestial dwellingframed not for man's abode-the holy silence, the mysterious fragrance, the light of ever-burning lamps, suggest to you that it is the home of invisi ble spirits, an outer-court of Heaven,-visited, per chance, in the deeper hours of a night that is never dark within its walls, by the all-sacred Awe itself.

Аз

No step

When you enter St. Peter's, Religion, as a local reality and a separate life, seems revealed to you. Far up the wide nave, the enormous baldachino of jetty bronze, with twisted columns and tint-like canopy, and a hundred brazen lamps, whose unextinguished flame keeps the watch of Light around the entrance to the crypt where lie the martyred remains of the Apostle, the rock of the church, give an oriental aspect to the central altar, which seems to typify the origin of the Faith which reared this Fane. Holiest of the holy is that altar. less sacred than a Pope's may ascend to minister before it; only on days the most august in the calendar, may even the hand which is consecrated by the Ring of the Fisherman be stretched forth to touch the vessels which rest on it. At every hour, over some part of the floor, worshippers may be seen kneeling, wrapt each in solitary penitence or adoration. The persons mystically habited, who journey noiselessly across the marble, bow and cross themselves, as they pass before this or that spot, betoken the recognition of something mysterious, that is unseen, invisible. By day illuminated by rays only from above, by night always luminous within -filled by an atmosphere of its own, which changes

not with the changing cold and heat of the seasons without, exhaling always a faint, delightful perfume, it is the realm of piety,-the clime of devotion-a spiritual globe in the midst of a material universe.

ELIHU G. HOLLAND

Was born of New England parentage at Solon, Cortlandt county, New York, April 14, 1817. His first published work was a volume entitled The Being of God and the Immortal Life, in 1846. His aim was to assert the doctrines of the divine existence and the immortality of man by arguments derived from the elements of human nature. In 1849 he published, at Boston, a volume, Reviews and Essays. It embraces an elaborate paper on the character and philosophy of Confucius, an analysis of the genius of Channing, an article on Natural Theology, and Essays on Genius, Beauty, the Infinite, Harmony, &c. This was followed in 1852 by another volume entitled Essays: and a Drama in Five Acts. The essays were in a similar range with those of its predecessor. The drama is entitled The Highland Treason, and is a version of the affair of Arnold and André. In 1853 he published a Memoir of the Rev. Joseph Badger, the revival preacher of the Christian connexion.* Though luxuriant and prolix in expression, with a tendency to over statement in the transcendental style, the writings of Mr. Holland show him to be a student and thinker.

We present a pleasing passage from an Essay on "American Scenery."

THE SUSQUEHANNAH,

No

It is difficult to imagine a more continuous line of beauty than the course of the Susquehannah, a river whose mild grace and gentleness combined with power render it a message of nature to the affections and to the tranquil consciousness. This trait of mildness, even in its proudest flow, seems to hover upon its banks and waters as the genius of the scene. thunder of cataracts anywhere announces its fame. It is mostly the contemplative river, dear to fancy, dear to the soul's calm feeling of unruffled peace. This river of noble sources and many tributaries, traverses the vale of Wyoming, where, in other years, we have been delighted with its various scenery. Its mountain ramparts, which rise somewhat majestically to hail her onward progress, are crowned with a vegetation of northern fir, whilst the verdant and fertile valley is graced with the foliage of the oak, chestnut, and sycamore. At Northumberland, where the east and the west branch unite, the river rolls along with a noble expanse of surface; opposite the town rises, several hundred feet, a dark perpendicular precipice of rock, from which the whole prospect is exceedingly picturesque. The Alleghany Mountains, which somehow seem to bear a paternal relation to this river, lend it the shadow of their presence through great distances. These mountains, though they never rise so high as to give the impres sion of power and sublimity, are never monotonous. Though they are not generally gothic, but of rounded aspect, the northern part has those that are steep and abrupt, sharp-crested and of notched and jagged outline. The Susquehannah is wealthy also in aboriginal legend, and in abundant foliage. Its rude raft likewise aids the picture. It has many beautiful

An analysis of this work will be found in the Christian Examiner for July, 1854.

sources, particularly that in the lovely lake of Cooperstown; and no thought concerning its destiny can be so eloquent as the one expressed by our first American novelist whose name is alike honored by his countrymen and by foreign nations. He spoke of it as "the mighty Susquehannah, a river to which the Atlantic herself has extended her right arm to welcome into her bosom." Other scenery in Pennsylvania we have met, which, though less renowned than Wyoming and the Juniata, is not less romantic and beautiful. A noble river is indeed the image of unity, a representative of human tendencies, wherein many separate strivings unite in one main current of happiness and success. Man concentrates himself like a river in plans and purposes, and seek his unity in some chief end as the river seeks it in the sea.

WILLIAM A. JONES

Is a member of a family long distinguished for the eminent men it has furnished to the bar and the bench, in the state of New York, including the ante-revolutionary period. He was born in New York June 26, 1817. In 1836 he was graduated at Columbia College, and is now attached to that institution as librarian. His contributions to the press have been numerous, chiefly articles in the department of criticism. To Dr. Hawks's Church Record he furnished an extended series of articles on Old English Prose Writers; to Arcturus numerous literary papers. and afterwards wrote for the Whig and Democratic Reviews. He has published two volumes of these and other Essays and Criticisms: The Analyst, a Collection of Miscellaneous Papers, in 1840, and Essays upon Authors and Books in 1849. In the last year he also published a Memorial of his father, the late Hon. David S. Jones, with an Appendix, containing notices of the Jones Family of Queens County.

A passage from an article in the Democratic Review exhibits his style, in a eulogy of a favorite author.

HAZLITT.

William Hazlitt we regard, all things considered, as the first of the regular critics in this nineteenth century, surpassed by several in some one particular quality or acquisition, but superior to them all in general force, originality, and independence. With less scholarship considerably than Hunt or Southey, he has more substance than either; with less of Lamb's fineness and nothing of his subtle humor, he has a wider grasp and altogether a more manly cast of intellect. He has less liveliness and more smartness than Jeffrey, but a far profounder insight into the mysteries of poesy, and apparently a more genial sympathy with common life. Then, too, what freshness in all his writings, "wild wit, invention ever new:" for although he disclaims having any imagination, he certainly possessed creative talent and fine ingenuity. Most of his essays are, as has been well remarked," original creations," not mere homilies or didactic theses, so much as a new illustration from experience and observation of great truths colored and set off by all the brilliant aids of eloquence, fancy, and the choicest stores of accumulation.

As a literary critic he may be placed rather among the independent judges of original power than among the trained critics of education and acquirements. He relies almost entirely on individual impressions and personal feeling, thus giving a charm to his writings, quite apart from, and inde