crystal, and flowed gently on, till it had surrounded | tions are, with very few exceptions, applied | ed or founded our more mature character. the Knight's grave; it then pursued its course, and to every thing of consequence in the text. Then, the labours of all, who now gather emptied itself into a tranquil lake, which was near the consecrated ground. Even in our times, the They are so constructed, that no one can the fading recollections and traditions of inhabitants of the village show the stream, and en- enable himself to understand and answer elder days, and give them a permanent tertain an opinion that this is the poor, deserted them, without making himself master of the form, will be duly appreciated. The exeUndine, who, in this manner still surrounds with whole subject which they regard. cution of Mr Moore's work is as good as her affectionate arms, her beloved husband." the plan and purpose; it displays good sense, good taste, and much industry.

We have given these passages, not because they are all of them among the best which could have been selected, but as affording upon the whole, a pretty fair view of the character and execution of the work. For ourselves, we repeat, that we have been highly delighted with it. The name of the translator is not given, and we know not to whom we are indebted for the pleasure it has afforded us. His task, we have no doubt, though we have no acquaintance with the original, has been executed with fidelity; we know at least, that the English dress in which he has presented this fanciful little tale, is neat, often beautiful, and always interesting.

1824.

The typography of the work, in every respect but that of literal correctness, is excellent; there are some errors of this sort, but all which could cause any mistake, are corrected with the pen. It may be well to add, that the addition of the questions does not increase the price of the work, this edition being sold at the same rate as the 12mo edition of Blair's Rhetoric in common use.

8vo. pp.

The "Annals of Concord" are brought down, quite to the present day, and some account is given of all the inhabitants of the town, who have been remarkable in any respect. The notice of Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, who passed some years in Concord, is peculiarly interesting.

There is much in these Annals respecting the Indian warfare; much that it is now

Annals of the Town of Concord, in the Coun- difficult to realize as having actually exty of Merrimack, and State of New-isted. What a contrast is there, between Hampshire, from its first Settlement, in the present peaceful and secure condition the Year 1726, to the Year 1823. With of our towns, and a situation which exposed several Biographical Sketches. To which them to circumstances like those narrated is added, a Memoir of the Penacook In- page 23. dians. By Jacob B. Moore. "On Monday morning, the 11th, seven of the inAn Abridgment of Lectures on Rhetoric. 112. Concord, 1824. habitants set out for Hopkinton, two on horses, and the others on foot, all armed. They marched on By Hugh Blair, D. D. Improved by the THIS simple and unpretending book, is both leisurely, and Obadiah Peters, having proceeded addition of Appropriate Marginal Ques-pleasing and useful, in a high degree. It some distance forward of the others into a hollow, tions, numbered to correspond with Refer- appears from the preface, that the author about one mile and a half from the street, set down ences in the body of the page. By Na- collected the facts and materials for his The Indians, thinking themselves discovered, rose his gun and waited the approach of his friends. thaniel Greene. 12mo. pp. 238. Boston own use, but concluded to publish these An- from their hiding-places, fired and killed Peters on nals, in the belief that they would be gen- the spot. At this moment, Jonathan Bradley and erally interesting. He did well to collect, the rest of his party had gained the summit of the and better to publish them; and we hope hill. Bradley was deceived in the number of the his success will be such as to encourage sim- enemy, supposing the few whom he saw near Peilar undertakings. ters to compose the whole party. He ordered his Works like this are men to fire, and they rushed down among them. needed to illustrate our earliest history. It The whole body of Indians instantly arose, being gives a plain relation of the first settlement about 100 in number. Bradley now urged his men of Concord, with a minute account of the to fly for safety; but it was too late-the work of difficulties encountered and subdued, and shot through the body-stripped of his clothing, destruction had commenced. Samuel Bradley was of all the doings, public and private,-for and scalped. To Jonathan they offered 'good they were then almost the same,-of the quarter,' having been acquainted with him; but infant colony. The interior townships he refused their protection, his heroic spirit thirstof New England were settled in a some-ing to avenge the death of his comrades. He what similar manner, and yet the early fought with his gun against the cloud of enemies, history of each has peculiarities that give their knives and tomahawks, and literally hewed until they struck him on his face repeatedly with to it a distinct interest. They agree, in him down. They then pierced his body, took off that a wilderness was about them, thinly his scalp and clothes. Two others, John Bean and peopled by a savage enemy, of equal ac- John Lufkin, attempting to fly, were killed by the tivity and malignity; that famine often same fire with Samuel Bradley. Alexander Robcame amongst them, threatening if not de- death, but were made prisoners and taken to Canerts and William Stickney fortunately escaped stroying; and that they generally, quite as ada. Immediately after the melancholy affair took soon as they were established, contrived to place, an alarm was given from Walker's garrison get into quarrels with their neighbours, to the people on the interval, and elsewhere, at about boundaries, or privileges of some some little distance. They soon assembled and kind. But the details of the savage war tioned at the garrison, and several of the inhabiconsulted on measures of safety. The soldiers stadiffer, sometimes according to casual cir- tants, then repaired to the scene of slaughter. As cumstances of location or condition, and they approached, the Indians were seen upon the sometimes from the differing habits of dif- retreat. The bodies were brought away in a cart, ferent tribes of Indians; the dangers and and were interred in the church-yard on the followdifficulties surmounted, and the spirit and unknown to the inhabitants until some time after, ing day. The number killed of the Indians was resources which met them, are infinitely when the information was obtained from Roberts, various. These particulars are more than who had made his escape from captivity. He staamusing; they are the materials for useful ted that four were killed, and several wounded, two history; they serve to illustrate vividly, mortally, who were conveyed away upon litters, both the character that our fathers brought hemlock tree in the Great Swamp, about half a mile and soon after died. Two they buried under a large with them, and that which they found in south of the scene of slaughter. The other two the aborigines. In time to come, it will be, were buried at some distance from them, near Turperhaps, thought more interesting than it key river. Roberts found the two bodies under is now, to seek in the conduct and condi- the log after his return from captivity. The head tion of the infancy of our country, those of one was taken away, it was supposed, by wild traits, and those impressions, which indicat-paid by the government." beasts. For the skull of the other, a bounty was

THE questions printed in the margin of each page, are perfectly simple and distinct, and well calculated to direct the attention of the scholar to those statements in the text, which it is most important that he should comprehend and remember. Every instructer who is properly desirous that his pupil should profit by the book he reads, must ask him many questions respecting it; not only to assure himself that it has been studied with sufficient assiduity, but to lead the mind of his scholar to those subjects which he should examine with most care. But few masters, compelled as they must be, to make little preparation in this respect, can devise at once questions so much to the point, as those which are here attached to the text; of course, these must not only be of great assistance to the teacher, but of importance to the scholar, because they secure to him an examination, at once precise and full. Another advantage is, that when boys recite in numerous classes, as must be the case in academies, but a small proportion of them can be examined with much care; but any one who uses this edition, while he studies the text, will have his attention directed where a skilful master would wish to lead it; it is in fact, the same thing as if he studied the work with constant reference to a digest, or compact abridgment of it. The only objection which can be urged against this method of printing school-books, is, that scholars, knowing beforehand what questions are to be asked them, prepare themselves accordingly, and neglect the remainder of the book. This is a point which deserves much attention; it is, however, but just to say, that in this work, the ques

ural and impossible attractions; in making but hatred, despairing yet untiring. Satan | combat with Lucifer; they avoid him or them mild, amiable, and affectionate, lovely is invested with unimaginable sublimity; they stand before him fearful and feeble. and beloved, and happy in their ambition, but it is the sublimity of darkness illu- Now then, Byron, by the terms of his own their vengeance, or their sensuality. Thus mined with hell-fire: it is composed of seeking, is reduced within an obvious dilema character is created and strongly im- every element of awe and terror, and ma. He has given the victory to the advopressed upon the imagination, the direct is unqualified by any thing which can cate of infidelity; therefore he either would tendency of which is to produce, in the in- allure to sympathy or imitation. We feel not or could not defeat his sophistry; if he tellectual apprehension, an association be- that he holds his burning sceptre because would not, it was because it is pleasant to tween things which approach each other he is supreme in pain;-he speaks to the him to blaspheme, and he loved the awful only in fiction, and a disunion between sun as something which had been beneath falsehoods of his hero too fondly to bring those which are seldom sundered in reality, his sphere, but curses the beam that brings them into light; if he could not, then the and never should be in the belief; between the memory of his past brightness; and we sad conclusion is inevitable, that he is inhumility and content, between usefulness are continually led to measure the height sensible to those truths and hopes and affecand happiness. It may be thought that all of his lost throne by the abyss into which tions which alone can elevate man from romantic works are liable to this charge in he has fallen. He meets the ministers of earth to happiness, and has not yet learned common with those of Lord Byron; but God in combat, in argument, and in pur- that none but the fool saith, There is no it applies to his productions with peculiar poses of evil, but he is exposed, defeated, God. aptness and force. In other works of this and punished, like a guilty and miserable class, the evil is commonly palliated, and, in thing; he is a rebel and a blasphemer some sort, remedied, by a degree of regard to against the Most High, but his rebellion is those domestic charities. and those duties its own punishment, his blasphemy is a cry and relations of society, which Byron seems of agony and despair, and his every word neither to love, respect, nor understand. and action and purpose proclaims that his This regard is seldom very enlightened; sovereignty in wickedness and power and but, at the worst, it is a folly neutralizing torment is one. Is it thus with Byron's a falsehood, which in Byron's poetry is Lucifer? Far from it; the impression he is wholly unresisted. That Lord Byron's in- calculated to produce is precisely the oppofluence is checked and decaying, is certain; site to that which is caused by the characbut who can deny that it has been great, that, ter of Satan. with any knowledge of human nature, has any recollection of the admiration, which his poems excited, and of the forgetfulness of their moral character in the acknowledgement of their power and splen

dour.

We may appear to have pushed the charge of infidelity and impiety too far. Byron, as we have already remarked, has of late made many protestations and excuses, which, with some critics, appear to have a degree of weight. In the preface to Cain he seems to anticipate the horror which the foul blasphemies of Lucifer must excite, and endeavours to excuse or defend them, by saying that "it was difficult to make him talk like a clergyman." He elsewhere refers to a great precedent for his justification: he appeals to Milton; and by the example of Milton, as far as two spirits so discordant can be brought into comparison, let him judged.

The Satan of Paradise Lost, is the sublime of evil. It was a thought which marked the character of Milton's intellect, to regard a pure hatred of God, as the crowned and sovereign sin. Had the subordinate devils been the creations of a less mighty mind, they would have differed from their leader and from each other, only as they were tainted with more or less wickedness. But it is not so: each one represents some elemental vice, and, in all that he says or does shows, with exceeding truth, the impulse and tendency of the sin he personifies. Avarice, Ambition, and Sensuality are there in vivid but disgusting reality. They are there with their brethren, leading the armies of hell; but they bow with willing self-abasement to the preeminence in sin and in suffering of him, on whom they rest their hopes and from whom they derive their strength; of him, who is the life, the essential spirit of all ill, as he is nought

It is impossible to read "Cain," without feeling that Lucifer is a favoured and cherished character; it is impossible to compare Lucifer with the heroes of Lord Byron's other works, without perceiving that he is one with them. There is, we have already said, a distinct character, which every favorite of the Byron school bears, and this character, strongly exaggerated, and relieved from a few of the incongruous amiabilities which are commonly attached to it, becomes Lucifer.

Milton's arch-fiend is opposed to the Al- There is a use in most things; and Lord mighty as evil to good, as falsehood to truth, Byron may do some good, even as an author. as misery to peace and happiness; but Lu- The limits which are put to his success, the cifer is triumphant and exulting. There is decay of his fame, the obloquy which is nothing of wretchedness about him, and he gathering about him, prove that there is declares himself to be miserable only that among those for whom he writes, a sense of he may better illustrate his proud scorn his folly and wickedness, which will not be and successful defiance of that Almighty wholly blinded even by the splendour of his vengeance which cannot inflict so much as poetry. In his earlier works Byron appearhe can endure. The cause of truth and ed as a poet of extraordinary powers, who goodness is argued by Cain, feebly and foolishly affected much melancholy, and against his will; Adam and Eve are repre- who unhappily failed to discover that the sented as unresisting victims of God's in- time had gone by, when an author could justice, worshipping him rather in fear than advance his reputation for talent and origiin love. Abel, Adah, and Zillah are very nality by indulging his spleen in sncers at good and peaceful, but rather weak and every thing holy, virtuous, or honourable. quite unable to aid Cain in his wordy con- He wrote a series of delightful tales, unittest with Lucifer. The spirit of evil is ing to great novelty in point of character alike triumphant in argument and in temp- every species of poetic beauty. At this tation; and his weapons are the same in period his reputation was at its height; he both. He tempts to disobedience and sin, had indeed discovered the traits of character by promising knowledge; and overcomes which he has since shown more openly, but the habits of devotion in which Cain had he had not then obtruded them upon public been educated, by performing his promise, notice; he had not yet written Don Juan by compelling the reason of Cain to admit and Cain, as if to show that the finest poetthat man is miserable because God is essen-ry might be used to decorate vulgar licentially unjust and cruel! This tremendous tiousness or the sophistry and curses of blasphemy is repeated in many forms and blasphemy. But he has since gone so far with all possible distinctness, and adorned as to alarm and shock every feeling of love with all the poetry and enforced with all for goodness or respect for sanctity. Pubthe eloquence which Lord Byron could lic sentiment is decidedly against him; his command. It is no palliation, that Lucifer's last books do not sell; they remain on the arguments are altogether trite and futile, booksellers' shelves instead of being defor they are all that infidelity has yet found. manded with an avidity which could hardly To the excuse which Byron offers in his be supplied. The last cantos of Juan are own defence, that he was obliged to make almost unread here, and were it not for the his persons speak in character, we need not newspapers, which extract their best pasanswer that he was nowise required to sages, it would hardly be known that Byron write that which could not be written with- continued to write. In this fact there is inout blasphemy,-for the excuse wholly fails finite encouragement for them who hope of itself. If Lucifer must speak in charac- that men will one day learn to prefer good ter, why must not Adam and Abel and to evil, and who would add their mite of the Angel of the Lord,-for he too is a effort, to bring about this blessed consumperson of this Mystery? But they do not mation.

He is my father: but I thought that 'twere
Never to have been stung at all, than to
A better portion for the animal

Purchase renewal of its little life

With agonies unutterable, though
Dispell'd by antidotes."

There is an attempt to liken "Cain" to | the ancient Mysteries or Moralities; perhaps to give it the sanction of some example; but it differs from them about as much as from our common, acting plays. It is a poem in dialogue; the interlocutors are Soon after, Cain, in vengeance for the Adam, Cain, and Abel,-Eve, Adah, and • Zillah,—and Lucifer and the Angel of the preference paid to Abel's sacrifice, endeaLord. There is very little story in the yours to destroy Abel's altar, and slays him poem. It begins with a sacrifice which all for defending it. The Angel of the Lord the mortals offer in conjunction; Cain is appears and pronounces the curse upon Cain, left alone, and Lucifer soon comes to him, who departs, a fugitive. There are passaMystery," which and enters upon a long argument, which ges of poetry in this “ finally appears to convince Cain that God Byron has never surpassed. The scenes is merciless, and that it is a valiant and ex-between Cain and Adah are always beauticellent thing to defy him. We will quote ful. She meets him, after Lucifer had left a part of this dialogue, which may show not only the exquisite beauty scattered over the whole, but the character of the dialogue, that is sustained throughout the poem.

him, thus.

Adah. Hush! tread softly, Cain.
Cain.
I will; but wherefore?
Adah. Our little Enoch sleeps upon yon bed
Of leaves, beneath the cypress.
Cain.
Cypress! 'tis
A gloomy tree, which looks as if it mourn'd
"Lucifer. Approach the things of earth most O'er what it shadows; wherefore didst thou
beautiful,

And judge their beauty near.
Cain.

I have done this

The loveliest thing I know is loveliest nearest,
Luc. Then there must be delusion-What is
that,

Which being nearest to thine eyes is still
More beautiful than beauteous things remote?

Cain. My sister Adah.-All the stars of heaven,
The deep blue noon of night, lit by an orb
Which looks a spirit, or a spirit's world-
The hues of twilight-the sun's gorgeous coming-
His setting indescribable, which fills
My eyes with pleasant tears as I behold
Him sink, and feel my heart float softly with him
Along that western paradise of clouds-

The forest shade-the green bough-the bird's
voice-

The vesper bird's, which seems to sing of love,
And mingles with the song of cherubim,
As the day closes over Eden's walls;-
All these are nothing, to my eyes and heart,
Like Adah's face. I turn from earth and heaven
To gaze on it.

Luc.

"Tis frail as fair mortality,

In the first dawn and bloom of young creation
And earliest embraces of earth's parents,
Can make its offspring; still it is delusion.

Cain. You think so, being not her brother.
Luc.

Mortal!

My brotherhood's with those who have no children.
Cain. Then thou canst have no fellowship with

us.

Luc. It may be that thine own shall be for me.
But if thou dost possess a beautiful
Being beyond all beauty in thine eyes,
Why art thou wretched?

Cain.

Why do I exist?

Why art thou wretched? why are all things so?
Ev'n he who made us must be, as the maker
Of things unhappy! To produce destruction
Can surely never be the task of joy,
And yet my sire says he's omnipotent:
Then why is evil-he being good? I ask'd
This question of my father; and he said,
Because this evil only was the path.

To good. Strange good, that must arise from out
Its deadly opposite. I lately saw

A lamb stung by a reptile: the poor suckling
Lay foaming on the earth, beneath the vain
And piteous bleating of its restless dam;
My father pluck'd some herbs, and laid them to
The wound; and by degrees the helpless wretch
Resumed its careless life, and rose to drain
The mother's milk, who o'er it tremulous
Stood licking its reviving limbs with joy.
Behold, my son! said Adam, how from evil
Springs good!

Luc. What didst thou answer?
Cain.

choose it

For our child's canopy?

Adah. Because its branches

Shut out the sun like night, and therefore seem'd
Fitting to shadow slumber.

Cain.
Ay, the last-
And longest; but no matter-lead me to him.
How lovely he appears! his little cheeks,
[They go up to the child.
In their pure incarnation, vying with
The rose leaves strewn beneath them.
Adah.
And his lips, too,
How beautifully parted! No; you shall not
Kiss him, at least not now: he will awake soon-
His hour of mid-day rest is nearly over;
But it were pity to disturb him till
'Tis closed.

Cain. You have said well; I will contain
My heart till then. He smiles, and sleeps!
Sleep on

And smile, thou little, young inheritor
Of a world scarce less young: sleep on, and smile!
Thine are the hours and days when both are cheer-
ing

And innocent! thou hast not pluck'd the fruit-
Thou know'st not thou art naked! Must the time
Come thou shalt be amerced for sins unknown,
Which were not thine nor mine? But now sleep
on!

His cheeks are reddening into deeper smiles,
And shining lids are trembling o'er his long
Lashes, dark as the cypress which waves o'er them;
Half open, from beneath them the clear blue
Laughs out, altho' in slumber. He must dream-
Of what? Of Paradise!-Ay! dream of it,
My disinherited boy! "Tis but a dream;
For never more thyself, thy sons, nor fathers,
Shall walk in that forbidden place of joy!
Adah. Dear Cain! Nay, do not whisper o'er

our son

Such melancholy yearnings o'er the past:
Why wilt thou always mourn for Paradise?
Can we not make another?"

Cain dwells upon the sufferings and des-
tinies of man until he declares it were better
that his child had not been born; Adah
answers him.

· Adah. - Oh, do not say so! Where were then
the joys,
The mother's joys of watching, nourishing,
And loving him? Soft! he awakes. Sweet Enoch!
[She goes to the child.
Oh Cain! look on him; see how full of life,
Of strength, of bloom, of beauty, and of joy,
How like to me how like to thee, when gentle,
For then we are all alike; is't not so, Cain?
Mother, and sire, and son, our features are
Nothing; for Rellected in each other; as they are

In the clear waters, when they are gentle, and
When thou art gentle. Love us, then, my Cain!
And love thy self for our sakes, for we love thee.
Look! how he laughs and stretches out his arms,
And opens wide his blue eyes upon thine,
To hail his father; while his little form
Flutters as wing'd with joy. Talk not of pain!
The childless cherubs well might envy thee
The pleasures of a parent! Bless him, Cain!
As yet he hath no words to thank thee, but
His heart will, and thine own too."

The "Deformed Transformed" is the last work which Byron has published; it is not strongly characterized by the poet's peculiarities, and many have doubted whether it were his, but there are parts of it which only a poet could have written. The story is simple enough. A hunchback sells himself to the devil for beauty; the "Stranger," brings before him the eminent of past ages, that he may choose whose form to wear. He finally determines to be as Achilles was; assumes his form, joins the army of Bourbon, and assists in the assault of Rome.

Anthony and Demetrius Poliorcetes are thus described;

Arnold. What's here? whose broad brow and
whose curly beard

And manly aspect look like Hercules,
Save that his jocund eye hath more of Bacchus
Than the sad Purger of the infernal world,
Leaning dejected on his club of conquest,
As if he knew the worthlessness of those
For whom he had fought.
Stranger.

It was the man who lost
The ancient world for love.

You seem congenial, will you wear his features?
Arnold. No. As you leave me choice, I am dif-
ficult,

If but to see the heroes I should ne'er
Have seen else on this side of the dim shore
Whence they float back before us.
Stranger.

Thy Cleopatra's waiting.

Hence, Triumvir!

[The Shade of Anthony disappears: anoth-
er rises.]
Arnold.
Who is this?
Who truly looketh like a demigod,
Blooming and bright, with golden hair, and stature,
If not more high than mortal, yet immortal
In all that nameless bearing of his limbs,
Which he wears as the Sun his rays-a something
Which shines from him, and yet is but the flashing
Emanation of a thing more glorious still.
Was he e'er human only.
Stranger.

Let the earth speak,
If there be atoms of him left, or even
Of the more solid gold that formed his urn.
Arnold. Who was this glory of makind?
Stranger.
The shame

Of Greece in peace, her thunderbolt in war-
Demetrius the Macedonian and
Taker of cities.

Arnold.

Yet one shadow more.
Stranger. (addressing the shadow.)
Get thee to Lamia's lap !"
Achilles, thus.

Book.—I have told you my author knows that | occasionally, but which, repulsive as they may be you are; moreover, he foresaw that I should meet to some whom I would fain conciliate, I have not you at this time, in this place, and that we should dared to exclude altogether from a work principally have such conversation together; for which he pre- intended for intellectual dissipation in leisure pared me with the answers already given to your hours. very natural inquiries.

“Book.—But we have characters to lose, and it 'Take this Book as a token of sincere esteem would be infatuation to throw them away on the from one whom you may never have known, but outset. Great authors, who ought to be the best who, while invisible as your guardian angel, like judges what to call their offspring, have often given him has long been employed in secret offices of them titles which were masks rather than manifes-kindness on your behalf. Believe me, all the time, tations of their purpose. The Diversions of Pur labour, study, watching, and, if you will allow it, ley,'-who could expect to be tasked with a game all the talent expended on its composition, were at hard words after such a holiday decoy? Take fervently devoted to your service. Though you the other aspect of this double-faced sphinx-may deem some of these pages too trifling, others “"Ezia #rigóivra ;' make winged words' of these, and still, so las as concerns the subject (happily hieroglyphic as they are), they will be Heathen Greek, not to the vulgar only, but to the learned themselves.

too grave, a few too florid, and many too dull, yet in all moods and vagaries of mind, I have had the twofold object in view, to amuse if I could, and benefit if I might, the good-natured_reader. When I have succeeded in one of these, I cannot have miscarried altogether in the other; for in the wildest humours, amidst reveries of egotism, sallies of fancy, and mazes of description, I have never lost sight of some moral aim, though I have not always placed it ostentatiously before your eye: at the same time, in my most portentous lucubrations, I have "Reader.-Who is your author? endeavoured to embellish, though I may have often "Book.-That is a secret with which, you see, failed to illustrate those solerin and eternal verities, he has not entrusted me. **** which I will not say I have ventured to introduce

I have done my part to please you; and if you do half as much to be pleased, neither of us will have reason to complain. Readers in general are little aware how much of the entertainment of such works depends upon themselves. If you, my gentle friend, are one of these, make the experiment with my little book: do your best to be delighted with it; and if there be stars in heaven, or flowers on earth, you shall not lose your labour.'

"So saying, my author dismissed me. I have come from his hands to place myself in yours, where I lie at your mercy.

"Reader.-I will do you justice."

There is a very pretty and playful "Life of a Flower," narrated in two letters from a violet to a lady; we will venture upon a long extract from this autobiography.