a little to one side, peeped out, while John, watching intently, forgot even to breathe, and came very near breaking a pane of glass with his nose.

Then, careless girl, she went into her closet with the candle, as the glimmer through the curtain testified. If she should drop a spark there, and in the dead hours of the night the house should burst forth in flames, John thought how he would rush through the blazing windows, and bear the dear incendiary forth in safety, or perish with her in his arms. Then, for a brief space, the light burned steadily upon the table, and the shadow did not fall upon the curtain. Lucy was, doubtless, kneeling at her prayers. At last, she rose, peeped once more from the window, so that John was sure he caught a glimpse of one cheek, and the ruffle of her nightcap, and the next moment all was dark.

It was a warm and balmy spring night. The gentle breeze, laden with the fragrance of lilac shrubs and blossoming orchards, seemed like the very breath of May, as it stirred the leaves of the big buttonwoods with a quiet, whispering rustle. The frogs in the river piped a melodious treble, and the roar of the mill-dam in the gorge came down upon the wind, softened to a deep undertone of harmonious bass. The plaintive notes of a whip-poor-will sounded faintly in the distance. There was a soft glow in the sky beyond the eastern hills, that announced the rising of the moon.

John was not insensible to the gentle influence of the time. The fever of his excitement abated. He was able to think with comparative calmness, to reason with himself concerning the state of his feelings, and to form resolutions and plans with respect to his future conduct. It was a grave question that he presently put to himself; and three long midnight hours did he give to its consideration. Seated upon the foot of his bed, with the moonlight streaming in on his pale face, he pondered whether it was his duty to crush the sweet hopes that so lately had sprung up in his heart, and with them crush the heart in which they grew withal.

Easy as it may seem to write or to read about it, this was. nevertheless,

stern and terrible trial, for the result was at times very doubtful, and upon that result, John knew, depended his hopes of earthly happiness. Had his conscience, sitting in judgment, decided against his inclination, the decree would have been executed.

The conclusion to which he at last arrived, as the stroke of one, from Walbury steeple, came vibrating through the silent air, he expressed aloud. "If she loved him," said he, "or even regarded him with indifference, I wouldn't try to thwart the will of my good, kind uncle, in the matter of his long cherished plan. I would tell him all; leave my mother and sister to his care; and never return until I could endure the misery of seeing Lucy the wife of another man. But she does not love him; she even dislikes, hates him. And who can wonder at it? To think of her being the wife of such a fellow! She never could be happy! He hasn't heart enough to love her; and I-I have loved her from childhood. When I first met her in Hartford, the reason why I did not know her was, that I had cherished the image of her, as I had seen her last, so faithfully. But my heart knew its mistress! Then I struggled to overcome what I deemed to be a hopeless passion. But now I cannot believe that duty and honor require me to forego the effort to win that without which I can never be happy. So help me God, then, I will win her if I can-though I serve for her fourteen years, as Jacob did for Rachel!"

Having thus settled the matter in his own mind, John looked out of the window to see if all was safe across the way, and then, discerning no signs of danger, he quickly undressed himself and went to bed, and in spite of his passion he was fast asleep in ten minutes afterwards.

So it came to pass, that the next Sunday night, when young Joab Sweeny went down to call upon his cousin Lucy, and to open his courting campaign, by repeating to his intended bride certain speeches and sayings which his mother had instructed him were proper and pertinent to the occasion, he had. without suspecting it, a most dangerous and determined rival.

LITERATURE.

AMERICAN.-We confess to considerable pride, in the fact that our Monthly, though still in the bloom and freshness of her youth, is already the nursing mother of a goodly family of children. One after another they have gone forth from her maternal care, into the struggling world, to set up for themselves, and acquire, if they can, a respectable position. Nor have their efforts been wholly unavailing. The first of the flock, it is true, was somewhat of an erratic genius, and devoted himself with too much enthusiasm-honest, however to the cause of a certain "Lost Bourbon," who was supposed to have straggled off into the woods, and was afterwards actually picked up among the Caughnewaga Indians; but his success was unequivocal while he lived, and many sincere weepers have mourned his untimely death. His eldest sister, the lively and ingenuous "Mrs. Potiphar," was of a more worldly turn, and contrived, by her agreeable manners and graceful wit, to win a friendly welcome into all the first mansions of the Fifth avenue, as well as into several very quiet country homes. The third, the student of the Family, a "Shakespeare's Scholar," as he was modestly named, after establishing an intimacy in the most cultivated circles of his own land, went abroad, to make a tour of Europe, where he is now domiciled among the eminent literary critics, as an especial favorite. He has just been followed by a brother of more rollicking disposition--the one who went to Spain, and now talks so pleasantly of Cosas de Espana-and is destined, as we have elsewhere intimated, to shake the cobwebs from the ribs of all who manage to get into a chat with him. The youngest of the tribe is named "Israel Potter," the earnest, indomitable, free-hearted, much suffering Israel, who having just made his bow to "his Highness, the Bunker Hill Monument," is about to make a patriotic progress, like a new President, over the nation. May he be everywhere received according to his deserts!

Thus, we repeat, within the brief period of two years, no less than six of the intellectual offspring of the Monthly have gone VOL. V.-35

forth, to challenge the love and admiration of the world, or at least to conquer for themselves an independent, influential, and well-to-do place among their fellow-citizens. Nor will the "procreant bed and cradle" of their young mother refuse us other pledges of her affection. If reports be true, she promises to bless us soon with other fruits of travail. "Titbottom" is putting on his white cravat, preparatory to an introduction into society; the burlyheaded, two-fisted "Politician," who smashes Presidents and parties, with such gusto, threatens a descent into the ring our ever popular "Philosopher," who sets Nature in motion, may soon gather up the folds of his garments to walk abroad, to say nothing of a bevy of young poetical fledgelings, who seem eager to try their wings outside of the native homestead.

We say that we take considerable pride in these facts, because we doubt whether they are paralleled in the history of periodical literature. A good many excellent books, it is true, have been gathered out of the pages of Blackwood, and a few out of Fraser; but then Blackwood and Fraser are both patriarchs in the literary world, and have a right to a numerous progeny, whereas Putnam is a mere chicken,-scarcely more than a green and tender sproutand to have leaved and flowered so soon and so luxuriantly, shows unusual pith and vigor. In short, it is a result-to blurt out our whole vanity at once-which demonstrates two important things, firstly, that there are a good many good writers amongst us, and, secondly, that Putnam knows how to bring them out! Of course, the books to which we allude would probably have seen the light without the careful nursing of the Magazine, but could they have got so handsome a start into the world without its aid? With this ancestral pat upon the head, therefore, we wish all' our children." God speed."

-We shall not take the liberty of discussing the subject involved in Mr. HENRY JAMES's Inquiry into the Nature of Evil, because we are not sure that we quite apprehend his argument; and, if we did, we do not esteem this the place for ventilating our private opinions in theology. At the same time, there is no reason why we

should not speak of it as a literary performance. It is the last of some two dozen replies, which have been made to that remarkable specimen of Calvinistic felo de se, Dr. Beecher's "Conflict of Ages," and, in many respects, it is the ablest. Mr. James, however, does not confine himself to the question as stated in Dr. Beecher's work, viz. how God can be shown to be just in the condemnation of the sinful creature, but endeavors to show how the existence of sin itself is compatible with the Divine perfections, which he regards as a deeper and broader question. Taking for granted the fundamental or traditional truths of the Church, as the great and undeniable facts of life, i. e., the sovereignty of God, the fall and corruption of man, the need of an incarnation, and the necessity of a regenerate life, in order to the attainment of peace on earth, and bliss in heaven, he gives a new philosophy, or a new intellectual statement of those truths, founded upon Swedenborg, and more in accordance, as he supposes, with the demands of the heart and the understanding. Both the theology and philosophy of the old Church, he argues, are submerged in a gross naturalism, and until they are rescued from it, and placed on the vantage-ground of a truly spiritual perception, they will depart more and more from genuine Christianity, and lose themselves, either in the mists of a purely metaphysical, or in the bogs of animal indulgence. He refers, in proof of this danger, to the later developments of both Theology and Philosophy in Germany, which are the legitimate outgrowth or flowering of the naturalistic root, from which orthodoxy, as now interpreted, springs. With what success Mr. James has accomplished his task, the readers of his book will judge; and we leave it, therefore, to them and to the strictly religious journals to say.

We are free to confess, however, to a strong admiration of Mr. James's rhetorical endowments. He is a master of sinewy, idiomatic English, and a most fresh and graceful style. Abstract as his speculations are, from the very nature of his subject, he always contrives to invest them with a genial and lively interest. One is often conscious of reading whole pages, even without understanding them, from the simple charm of the manner. But when you do understand them, as you may

by a little study,-while the whole mind, perhaps, bristles up in almost angry opposition to his doctrines-he quite disarms your malice by the pleasant music of the words, his concealed mirth, his sweetness of temper, and his racy, smacking sincerity. In frequent passages, too, he rises into the purest eloquence, in which a robust strength is married to a stately yet easy grace. We should like to cite some of these passages, as specimens of decorous controversy, as well as of persuasive teaching, but our space will not permit.

What the generality of readers will complain of, in Mr. James, they will call a tendency to mysticism, but which, in reality, is not any obscurity in his thought, so much as a habit of too rapid generaliza tion. Entirely familiar himself with the region in which he travels, he is apt to forget that to others it is quite unknown ground. Statements, or reasonings, consequently, which are as clear to him, and to those who adopt his methods, as the noonday, lie in the twilight and shadow to other minds. Indeed, in more than one instance, we have heard his speculations denounced as meaningless, and that, too, by persons who ought to be able, if they are not, to follow his course of thought. We can

assure all such, however, that they are full of meaning, and that if they will have the patience to take up the links of association, sometimes inadvertently dropped out between two important assertions, they will discover that his movements are wholly logical, not leaps, as they appear, but regular progressions. At the same time, it would be absurd to expect, that a treatise on spiritual religion, which is a matter of inward experience and life, and not of formal logic, will adapt itself as readily to the understanding as a discussion in natural sciences, or an essay on the belles lettres.

In remarking, that we should leave the doctrines of Mr. James to the strictly religious periodicals, we meant to suggest that we should like to see him thoroughly reviewed. We have a curiosity to see in what way so vigorous and trenchant an opponent of the orthodox formulas is to be met. It is clear, that a book of such manifest vitality and talent should not be wholly ignored. It will make a profound impression among earnest and cultivated men, many of whom have neither the time,

nor the intellectual discipline to enable them to grapple with the deeper problems it undertakes to solve, and who will, therefore, naturally look to the regular standards of opinion for instruction and help. Will not some of the sturdier champions of the accepted faiths, then, take up the glove of this armed and confident challenger, and put him to the test? The theological system of Swedenborg, which he adopts substantially, but which he presents under somewhat new aspects, is silently making its way, we are told, among the younger minds of the nation, and is altogether too portentous a subject to be dismissed in the

ordinary newspaper style. It may have been demolished, for aught we know, a thousand times, but there would be no harm in doing it over again, if it can be be done, in the interest of the new generations.

-Cosas de España is one of the works for which, as having partly first met the public eye in our pages, we may be indulged with a little paternal pride and satisfaction. It is, in fact, one of the most racy, sensible, and sprightly records of a charming episode of European travel that we have seen. And so great an admiration have we of the American talent for traveling, and for telling the stories of travel, that we intend in our June number to say something more at length about Cosas de España, and some other recent books of travel. Until then, with a hearty commendation of this most entertaining and brilliant volume, to which we may sincerely say, au revoir, we take leave of it.

are

-One might parody an ancient English jest, and say that the writer of American Agitators and Reformers, who is MR. D. W. BARTLETT, seems to divide the world into men, women and the Beecher family. Of the fifteen or twenty distinguished individuals whom he sketches, three Beechers-Mrs. Stowe, old Mr. Lyman, and young Master Henry Ward. We cannot confess to a knowledge of all Mr. Bartlett's pets-N. P. Rogers being only remotely discerned in these parts, while Mr. Ichabod Codding and Thurlow Brown have never before come within range of our object-glasses. But there are others of his heroes whose names are more familiar to us; such as Garrison, Gough, Greeley, Giddings, and Frederick Douglass. When Dickens was in this country, he was as

tonished at the number of "remarkable men " that he heard of, and we are quite sure that the number has not decreased since he left us. At any rate, Mr. Bartlett tells us that Theodore Parker is "one of the most remarkable men of our time;" that Frederick Douglass is "a remarkable man, who was born a slave in Maryland ;" that Mrs. Stowe has written "a remarkable volume;" that Elihu Burritt's "maternal grandfather, Hinsdale, was a remarkable man," as Elihu is, himself; that James Russell Lowell is " a remarkable man, and a poet;" and so on, we presume, to the end of the chapter. Among this score of remarkable men, we find the name of William Cullen Bryant-sandwiched, too, between Joshua Giddings and Lyman Beecher --and we wonder how he got there. Bryant, the most shy, modest, retiring of poets, who has lived thirty years in New York, and is hardly known, personally, to as many men; who shrinks, with the timidity of a woman, from every sort of gaze, and who has a much better acquaintance with the woods and fields than the haunts of bipeds to be classed as an agitator! It is true that he has fearlessly discharged the duties of his calling, as the editor of a newspaper; but we can fancy, if he were brought in actual contact with those with whom he is here placed, how incontinently he would explode out of the hot company into the free, cool air!

The fact is, that we have little sympathy with Mr. Bartlett's worship of personalities, and think he might employ his pen to better purpose. He is excusable, perhaps, on the ground that nearly all of his great men are abolitionists, who, having had a good deal of pounding heretofore, may be now entitled to a share of the pudding and praise; and yet, as a general rule, he may adopt it, that good men do not like eulogy and notoriety, and bad men do not deserve them--while the public is rather nauseated with celebrities of all sorts.

-Professor F. A. P. BARNARD'S Letters on College Government, reprinted in pamphlet form, from the Mobile Register, are very lucidly and argumentatively written. The following short extract is terribly true :

"The system of government existing in American colleges, considered as a system of moral restraint, is all but worthless. My own convictions would justify me in using even stronger language than this. To me, it has all the character of an ascer

to expect good to grow out of a system like this? And if young men emerge spotless from the ordeal of a college life, is it not plain that they do so, not in consequence of the system, but in spite of it? Vice and crime would be unknown, but for temptation; temptation would usually be powerless, but for opportunity. Youthful passions rarely fail to find the first; the American college system furnishes the second in its amplest form."

Considerations like these may well appall every mother who is sending away her sons to finish their scholastic training in a college. She may very properly feel that she is casting her child into a whirlpool of the most dreadful dangers. Professor Barnard goes on to show how existing faults have been derived from the imitation, by our colleges, of the European universities; and to urge, very powerfully, the importance and practicability of a reform in the particulars considered, by giving up the dormitory system, leaving the students under the civil authority as to breaches of the peace and minor misdemeanors; and by placing colleges, whereever its possible, in large towns, instead of in remote rural locations. The arguments advanced in support of his views demand and deserve the most careful consideration, from all friends of colleges and of students. -Harvestings in Prose and Verse, by SYBIL HASTINGS, is a collection of sketches of social life, interspersed with short poems. Of these last, very little can be said. The prose tales show considerable power of imagination, but are told in an overstrained, passionate way, and embody some incidents too little probable to be worked up satisfactorily, without a very remarkably plausible rhetoric.

-It has sometimes been inquired whether Mr. MELVILLE's Israel Potter is a romance or an authentic narrative; and in the dedication of the book (which did not appear in our Monthly), he explains. He says:"Shortly after his return," (i. e. Israel's return to this country from England,) "a little narrative of his adventures, forlornly published, on sleazy gray paper, appeared among the peddlers, written, probably, not by himself, but taken down from his lips by

another. But, like the crutch-marks of the cripple at the Beautiful Gate, this blurred record is now out of print. From a tattered copy, rescued by the merest chance from the rag-pickers, the present account has been drawn, which, with the exception of some expansions, and additions of historic and personal details, and one or two shiftings of scenes, may, perhaps, be not unfitly regarded something in the light of a dilapidated old tomb-stone retouched."

The original, however, is not so rare as Mr. Melville seems to think. At any rate, we have a copy before us, as we write, which is clearly printed and neatly bound,. with a coarse wood-cut frontispiece, representing Israel as he trudged about London, with his two children, crying "old chairs to mend." The title-page we copy for the benefit of the reader :-"Life and Adventures of Israel R. Potter, (a native of Cranston, Rhode Island,) who was a soldier in the American Revolution, and took a distinguished part in the battle of -Bunker hill, (in which he received three wounds,) after which he was taken prisoner by the British, conveyed to England, where, for 30 years, he obtained a livelihood for himself and family, by crying 'old chairs to mend' through the streets of London. In May last, by the assistance of the American Consul, he succeeded (in the 79th year of his age) in obtaining a passage to his native country, after an absence of 48 years. Providence Printed by J. Howard, for I. R. Potter, 1824. Price 31 cents."

Mr. Melville departs considerably from his original. He makes Israel born in Berkshire, Mass., and brings him acquainted with Paul Jones, as he was not. How far he is justified in the historical liberties he has taken, would be a curious case of literary casuistry.

-A Long Look Ahead, by A. S. ROE, is a story of rural life, of which the scene is laid in Fairfield county, Connecticut. It is an honest, hearty narrative of the successful struggles of a rather remarkably gifted young man, who, with his brother, begins with a small farm and two hundred dollars in cash, and ends with much more land and much more cash, besides great reputation and influence. As a work of art, the book is not of a high order. The language is very often either too good or too bad for the social standing of the speakers; and the incidents are selected, as if by some