his pencil children retained their playground | gel-wings, and wake out of his dream to clothes, and preserved their playground occupations, and appeared at the best, and in homely realism, what Wordsworth calls put on rags and loathe them; and thus will he grow up in a sour discontent with that ' state of life to which it has pleased God to call him."* The Rev. Llewellyn Davies, in a review of the Revivals of 1859, of which visitations children were the subject, equally with their elders, refers to this fact as one peculiarly shocking to English Christians, at least to Churchmen and Churchwomen. At an incredibly tender age they, poor things, are made 'convicts,' arrive at peace,' and afterwards become leaders of prayer and exhortation." In the Scriptures, he goes on to affirm, you will as "Sound healthy children of the God of heaven." The style and effect of Mrs. Pardiggle's system of home education are depicted by Mr. Dickens with a high-coloured brush. She is made to introduce to us her five boys: Egbert, aged twelve, as the boy who sent out his pocket-money to the amount of five-and-three-pence, to the Tockahoopo Indians; Oswald (ten and a half), as the child who contributed two-and-nine-pence to the Great National Smither's Testimonial; soon find cases of little children" convictFrancis (nine), one-and-sixpence-half-pen- ed" of sin, as you will cases of grown. perny; Felix (seven), eightpence to the super sons thrown into epileptic convulsions by utterly unknown to both the Testaments." ↑ annuated Widows, while Alfred, the young- receiving the Gospel. "These things are est (five), has voluntarily enrolled himself in the Infant Bonds of Joy, and is pledged never, through life, to use tobacco in any form. Young "Bands of Hope," by the way, were of ill odour in the nostrils of a But to recur to the Pardiggle progeny. Never were seen such dissatisfied children - not merely weazen and shrivelled, but looking absolutely ferocious with discontent. late clerical essayist, pithy and pungent of "The face of each child, as the amount of pen, the Rev. John Eagles-so well and his contribution was mentioned, darkened widely known as the "Sketcher" of Black- in a peculiarly vindictive manner," except, wood's Magazine. In reviewing the "Re- however, the little recruit into the Infant ports" of Temperance and Teetotal Socie- Bonds of Joy, who was stolidly and evenly ties, he lamented the constant display-pro- miserable. "My young family are not cessions of children with banners, walking frivolous," Mrs. Pardiggle remarks; "they through crowded thoroughfares with music expend the entire amount of their allowbefore them, assuming all the consequence ances in subscriptions under my direction; of their position, as the "observed of all and they have attended as many public observers," drinking in excitement and self- meetings, and listened to as many lectures, approbation with the very air they breathe -little paragons of all that is good, satisfied only when they attract all eyes to them. What, he asks, is the natural tendency? "They must either believe that they have been converted into little angels on earth, or believe it not; in either case they are the worse. Their natures will rebel - will tell them they are acting a lie. They must be fed with excitement, than which nothing is more dangerous to young persons."† In another place the same plain country parson stands up for the old-fashioned Church Catechism, with its plain answers to plain questions, as far better for the instruction of children of the poor at least - than hymns which lift up the little souls far above their ' ordering themselves lowly and reverently.' Such 'holy children' as Mr. Smithies has described to us are not likely to acknowledge any to be their betters.' Now-a-days a child is not allowed to think as a child. He must have 'strong meats' when he should have milk for babes.' He must have visions of angel-robes and an 'Bleak House,' ch. viii. f'kesays by the Rev. John Eagles,' p. 201. orations, and discussions as generally fall to the lot of few grown people." She adds, with peculiar complacency, that Alfred (five) - the one who had, of his own election, joined the Infant Bonds of Joy - was one of the very few children who manifested consciousness on that occasion, after a fervid address of two hours from the chairman of the evening. There have been, unquestionably, many very interesting children who, as Dr. Holmes remarks, have shown a wonderful indifference to the things of earth, and an extraordinary development of the spiritual nature. Probably he would give Swedenborg a place among them. Of Bishop Svedberg's family of nine all but one were, we read, like himself and his wife, Sunday children," a recognized augury of the godliness of his house. Emanuel Swedenborg is not the exception out of the nine. And as a reviewer of his life remarks, to judge from Swedenborg's recollections in his old age, his childhood was one of precocious piety: from his fourth to his tenth year his thoughts * Temperance and Teetotal Societies,' ibid. p.210. † 'Macmillan, i. 372. were constantly engrossed in "reflecting on | sees indeed one of the most beautiful inGod, on salvation, and on the spiritual af- stances of the principle of compensation fections of men." The things he revealed which marks the Divine benevolence. "But in his discourse so astonished his parents that they declared angels certainly spoke through his mouth. But it does not appear valids is just simply what we professors call that Swedenborg carried his early pietism into his youth or early manhood."* Be that as it may, the biographies of these exceptionally devout children are recognized as identical in their essentials - the same " disinclination to the usual amusements of children," the same remarkable sensibility, † the same docility, the same conscientiousness; in short, what the Professor at the Breakfast-table designates an almost uniform character, marked by beautiful traits, which we look at with a painful admiration. It will be found, he asserts, that most of these children are the subjects of some constitutional unfitness for living. And he expresses his conviction that many healthy children are injured morally by being forced to read too much about these little meek sufferers and their spiritual exercises; that disgust is implanted in the minds of many robust youngsters by early surfeits of pathological piety. "I do verily believe that He who took children in in His arms and blessed them, loved the healthiest and most playful of them just as well as those who were richest in the tuberculous virtues." In the sensibility and the sanctity which often accompany premature decay, Dr. Holmes *Saturday Review,' xxiii. 603. † Schleiermacher, by the way, contends that children are incapable of true feeling; that what in them is called feeling is only utterance of instinct, to get the spiritual hygiene of robust natures out of the exceptional regimen of in 'bad practice,' and I know by experience that there are worthy people who not only try it on their own children, but actually force it on those of their neighbours." "Do children die so often and so good in your parts?" asks Charles Lamb of Bernard Barton, by way of gentle objection to the gentle Quaker's over-elaboration of that subject, in his volume of verses. And cordially would Elia, with his genuine depth of feeling, and his shrewd sense and keen perception, have assented to the American professor's doctrine, that a time comes when we have learned to understand the music of sorrow, the beauty of resigned suffering, the holy light that plays over the pillow of those who die before their time, in humble hope and trust; but that it is not until he has worked his way through the period of honest hearty animal existence, which every robust child should make the most of, - not until he has learned the use of his various faculties, which is his first duty, - that a boy of courage and animal vigour is in a proper state to read these tearful records of premature decay.† * 'Remains,' p. 128. ↑ "Now, when you put into such a hot-blooded, hard-fisted, round-cheeked little rogue's hand a sad-looking volume or pamphlet, with the portrait of a thin, white-faced child, whose life is really as much a training for death as the last month of a condemned criminal's existence, what does he find by which, however, they themselves, as well as oth- in common between his own overflowing and exult ers, are led erroneously to believe that they possess real feeling. See Schleiermacher's Letters, vol. i. No. clxvi. ing sense of vitality and the experience of the doomed offspring of invalid parents?" The Professor at the Breakfast-table,' § viii. break! ENDURANCE. How much the heart may bear, and yet not Of soul or body brings our end more nigh. We shrink and shudder at the surgeon's knifeEach nerve recoiling from the cruel steel, Whose edge seems searching for the quivering life; Yet to our sense the bitter pangs reveal That still, although the trembling flesh be torn, This, also, can be borne. We see a sorrow rising in our way, And try to flee from the approaching ill, We seek some small escape - we weep and pray JUST PUBLISHED AT THIS OFFICE: OCCUPATIONS OF A RETIRED LIFE, by EDWARD GARRETT. Price 50 cents. ALL FOR GREED, by the BARONESS BLAZE DE BURY. Price 38 cts. PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION AT THIS OFFICE: HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE II. These very interesting and valuable sketches of Queen Caroline, Sir Robert Walpole, Lord Chesterfield, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Pope, and other celebrated characters of the time of George II., several of which have already appeared in the LIVING AGE, reprinted from Blackwood's Magazine, will be issued from this office, in book form, as soon as completed. A HOUSE OF CARDS. THE BRAMLEIGHS OF BISHOP'S FOLLY, by CHARLES LEVER. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON. FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year, nor where we have to pay commission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 86 volumes, 90 dollars. " Second " The Complete Work, 20 50 " Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense of the publishers. PREMIUMS FOR CLUBS. For 5 new subscribers ($40.), a sixth copy; or a set of HORNE'S INTRODUCTION TO THE BIBLE, unabridged, in 4 large volumes, cloth, price $10; or any 5 of the back volumes of the LIVING AGE, in numbers, price $10. From The New York Evening Post. "OLD LAURIGER." THE most charming of college songs, both for tune and words, is the familiar "Lauriger Horatius." Mr. James A. Morgan, of New York, writes to the College Courant of Yale an interesting letter about it, of which the following is the substance: "Can any of your correspondents tell me who was the author of that most widely known and admired of our college songs, 'Lauriger Horatius'? Also, of the origin of the tune, which our Southern brethren appropriated during the war, to their 'My Maryland'? "Whoever wrote it, had drunk in the true rolick of the Mantuan; for Flaccus himself never wrote sixteen lines that breathed more unmistakably his own abandon, than this little bumper of bonhommie, as sparkling and inspiriting as a glass of Sully's best. I have been told that in the terrible Wilderness an officer heard a little group of grimmed and blackened men, in a rifle-pit, singing 'Lauriger Horatius.' Near them were lying two of their wounded comrades, waiting for the surgeons who were long coming, in those sad days when brave men lay bleeding in every thicket. And these two wounded men - one of them, as it proved, past all human surgery - were stoutly echoing the chorus they had so often shouted in merry rout and college frolic, when, poor fellows! they hardly dreamed their time, 'swifter than the tempest's breath,' was upon them. And I can well fancy that, like as in that group under the Redan, ""Something upon the soldier's cheek as the brave hearts dwelt on the long ago. "LAURIGER HORATIUS. I. "Poet of the Laurel wreath, Fleeter than the tempest's breath; II. "" Sweetly blooms the maid, the grape Gracefully uptwineth; But the poet, thirsty, sad, Mournfully declineth. "Bring the cup, &c. III. ""Glory is a hollow toy, Fame doth yield but sorrow; Wine and love alone give joy, "Another better known version of the cho rus is: "Give me cups that Bacchus crowns, Mr. Morgan gives the following as a perfect copy of the song, of which the common versions show many various readings : "LAURIGER HORATIUS. I. "Lauriger Horatius Quam dixisti verum, Fugit Euro citius II. "Crescit uva molliter Et puella crescit; Sed poeta turpiter Sitiens, canescit. "Ubi sunt, &c. III. "Quid juvat aeternitas Nominis? amare Nisi terrae filias The simple and beautiful air of Lauriger is just the thing for a campaign song. Will not some one of our Republican poets find lyric inspiration enough in the great political contest of 1868, for the safety of the government, and for peace, to give us words for it, which shall wed its sweet strains with the people's patriotic hopes and aspirations? From The North British Review. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. THE institutions and social life of America called a part in the drama at all - is not on the busy stage, mingling in the throng by whom the movement is carried on and the plot worked out; but aside, as a spectator, would appear in some respects unfavourable sympathising with, yet critical of all, and to the production of any form of literary activity in which the imagination is principally concerned. There is a hardness and matter-of-fact quality alike about the types of character and the historical environments which the Western Continent presents to the writer's study and choice, while he himself is open to the same influences that tend to produce these general features of national life. There would seem, therefore, to be at once less favourable conditions for the generation of the idealistic faculty, on the one hand, and less material for its exercise, on the other. Notwithstanding this twofold operation of the practical and materialistic recognising the hidden springs of the action and the influences, reaching from beyond the present and the visible, that sway the actors, with a far keener and more comprehensive sense than any of themselves. It could.not be better expressed than in the words of Miles Coverdale, in reference to his own share of the transactions at Blithedale: - "It resembles that of the chorus in a classic play, which seems to be set aloof from the possibility of personal concernment, and bestows the whole measure of its hope or fear, its exultation or sorrow, on the fortunes of others, between whom and itself this sympathy is the only bond." He complexion of the life of that great nation, is meditative, sympathetic, interpretative; its literature is not without examples of conspicuous idealism. A country that can boast of three such contemporary authors as Emerson in Philosophy, Longfellow in Poetry, and Hawthorne in Pure Fiction, cannot be considered a barren or unhopeful soil for the cultivation of the richer fruits of the imagination. As a literary artist, and in respect of that characteristic so difficult to analyse or define, but to which common consent has assigned the name Genius, it is questionable whether, among the distinguished and remarkable men whom America has produced, there is any one of higher rank than Nathaniel Hawthorne if, indeed, his equal. He has no glittering brilliance to arrest vulgar notice, no high-pressure enthusiasm or sweeping passion hurrying away with whirlwind-power great and small that come within its range, nor that rude muscular force that compels attention and often commands assent. He is calm, dreamy, subtle, with an imagination most penetrating, a refined almost a fastidious taste; and in his hands the pen becomes a very magician's wand, "creating," as he himself says, "the semblance of a world out of airy matter, with the impalpable beauty of a soap-bubble." He is very far from being one of Carlyle's heroes: he is eminently the man of con too poised to be decisive; with an ear too justly open to the multitudinous voices within him, to become the clear and pronounced organ and advocate of any one. Hence at once a certain suggestiveness and reticence, a tendency to raise questions rather than to settle them, and a delicacy, almost diffidence of treatment, which by some is felt to be most insinuating, by others timid or tantalizing. There are dark and curious chambers within his consciousness, which perhaps a want of firmness and courage, perhaps a wise humility, restrains him from too rashly investigating, but the shadowy forms of which he often finds a pleasing subdued awe in watching and pointing out from a distance. He sees a mystery in every living thing, - not merely the mystery which profounder science discovers underlying every operation of Nature, and of which that operation is but the phenomenal result and expression, but a latent mystery which manifests itself often with seeming caprice, yet ever normally, finding its cause and sanction less in physical than in moral and spiritual forces and laws operating through the veil of sensible things that overlie them. Endowed with a deep appreciation of the wonderful complexity of life, he sees minutely interlacing tissues lost to grosser sense, and which templation - not of action. His part in sometimes, under unusual lights, present the drama of life- if it can be properly shifting and apparently unaccountable hues. |