last published letter to the Secretary of War: "The apparent determination of the Department to place me in an attitude antagonistical to the Government, has an apt illustration in the well-known fable of Æsop. But I ask no favor, and shrink from no responsibility. While intrusted with the command in this quarter, I shall continue to devote all my energies to the public good, looking for my reward to the consciousness of pure motives, and the final verdict of impartial history." What a pregnant sketch is this-what a graphic limning of the character of the Administration, in two lines! Here is an old soldier of the Republic, covered all over with the glory of his achievements and victories, who is forced to declare, in substance, that at the end of his arduous and eminent services, the Administration has turned upon him with a deliberate purpose of fastening on him a groundless quarrel. But it is our purpose to devote this article to some exposition-such as our limits will allow-of the treatment which General Scott has received at the hands of the Administration. Nothing more unjustifiable, and, to say truly what we think and feel, nothing more atrocious, in the same line, ever marked the conduct of any government. General Scott was a marked character in this country before the Mexican war. He had rendered great and distinguished services to the country. He had shown the truest devotion to its great interests, its honor, and its renown, and he had served the country with very striking ability, both in civil and military employment. And now in this Mexican war, in a single campaign, he has placed his name on the same roll of immortal fame with the highest military geniuses of the world; inferior to none in those grand qualities which constitute a great Commander so far as he has had opportunity to display these qualities, and superior to most, if not to all, in the grander virtues of a considerate, humane and Christian Warrior. The truly great men of a country are the best property it possesses, or can possess. Their renown constitutes its renown; their fame is its fame. In the names of its great men the country lives, and becomes known and honored in the At this day, in every quarter of THE the globe, when our own beloved country is spoken of, and designed to be named with distinguished honor, it is called COUNTRY OF WASHINGTON. Without its great names no country is great, or even respectable. Greece, and Rome, and Italy, are immortal on account of the immortal names that lived in those countries and illustrated their history. Among the names of real and undying renown-comparatively few in number as yet-belonging to this country to be mentioned with respect and admiration wherever we are known, and wherever we shall be known in coming times, is undoubtedly that of WINFIELD SCOTT. We do not think it too much to say that no living American citizen, now that the campaign of 1847 in Mexico is closed, has done as much to give lustre and worldwide renown to the name of his country as General Scott. Taylor, we know, has done much, and other eminent citizens have had their share in different ways, in illustrating its history. Among the most eminent of these is HENRY CLAY. And there is one citizen in particular, whose name, in a sphere less dazzling and brilliant than that of Scott, but of quite as much solid worth and advantage, more than those of all our other living statesmen together, (as Burke said of Chatham, in reference to England,) "keeps the name of this country respectable in every other on the globe.' We refer, of course, to DANIEL WEBSTER. By the side of Webster, we place Scott, though mainly distinguished in another field of glory, as one who, from this time forward, is to keep the name of his country respectable, and give it lustre and renown, wherever its name is or shall be known in the world. His fame is the property and birthright of his countrymen, and is and will be dear to every American who loves his country, and his country's honor. It is this man whose characterthe men of the present Ad ministration have shown themselves incapable of appreciating, and whose fame-the rich property of the country-has only attracted their attention to make him the object of their jealousy and their malevolence. This is the Eagle hawked at by the mousing owls. After a long course of sinister and unmanly dealings with him, their rage has finally broken over all bounds of prudence, and vented itself in an open and undisguised effort to crush him at a blow. Personally absent from the country, a state prisoner at large in the proud capital of Mexico, conquered and captured under his lead, the Secretary of War takes this occasion to draw the well-earned reputation of the brave and gallant soldier within his rough embrace, to see if he cannot, after the manner in which the relentless Bruin treats his victim, at one rude hug, squeeze the vital breath out of it. Under the plausible pretence and pretext of defending himself and the President against the complaints of General Scott, on account of their neglects and unmerited rebukes, and their failure to give him their sympathy and support, he enters on an elaborate essay, running through nine columns of closely printed matter in a newspaper, to show that Scott not only wants the qualities of an able and even a safe Commander, but lacks also those of a just and honest man. This is the real object and scope of his communication. To say that this essay is ingenious and able, is only to give Governor Marcy credit for the talent he is known to possess. To say that it is wholly destitute of generosity, candor, fair dealing, manliness, and regard for the truth of history and for justice, is only to characterize it as it deserves. That it may temporarily mar the brightness of General Scott's fame, as it was designed to do, until the public can be put in possession of all the facts, is not at all unlikely; but we have no fears for his eventual renown. Mr. Polk may have his day of power, and Governor Marcy-the only man of real ability in his cabinet-may be his chief executioner; but they will find there are some things which their official tyranny is not potent enough to reach. They may soil and smirch the reputation of General Scott, but they cannot permanently injure or obscure it. They may make Socrates drink poison, but he will be immortal in his fame in spite of them. pose chiefly to undertake in this article, is to bring to the notice of our readers the conduct of the Administration-false, insincere, jesuitical, hollow and heartless as it has been-towards General Scott, from the commencement of the Mexican War. When the real character-the unmitigated baseness-of that conduct is once known to the country, the Secretary's Letter will then be read with no fear of danger to anybody's reputation beyond the circle of the Administration. When this war broke out, General Scott was Major-general commanding in chief the army of the United States, having his head-quarters at Washington. After the war had been carried on for six months, according to the President's ideas of prosecuting a war with vigor, and no peace or prospect of peace was secured, General Scott was called to the field. He carried the war to the capital of the enemy's country, by a series of achievements amidst difficulties and discouragements, never surpassed in any campaign in the whole history of human wars; and a treaty of peace was made-wanting, however, as yet, the ratification of the Mexican Government. When all this was done, General Scott was dismissed from the service of the country as commander of the army still in the field, in very exact accordance with his own prediction recorded in a letter to the Government, written on the 25th of July last. Detained still in Mexico by the order of the Government, he employed an early moment of leisure "to recall some of the neglects, disappointments, injuries and rebukes" which he had suffered from the Administration. This was his letter of the 24th of February, and which has been made the occasion of the Secretary's assault upon his character and fame in his elaborate paper of the 21st of April-a paper more replete with ill-disguised bitterness, with unfounded accusations, and slanderous imputations, than ever before emanated from an Executive Department of this government. General Scott's letter brought no new complaints, or none of any importance, against the Administration. The same complaints had been made before, in successive communications to the Department of War, as the events had occurred, and to which answers, and explanations, and argumentations had been tion is regarded by thinking men in America as constituting a far less important point of distinction between that government and ours than would at first be supposed. The prerogative of the crown is coming to be, in fact it has already become, little else than a name. It is the function of requesting, in form, the party to take power, which Parliament makes dominant in fact. It is, in a word, public sentiment which appoints the head of the administration, in England as well as in America; the difference being, that in England it is a part, and in America the whole of the community whose voice is heard in ence of other features altogether in the British system which constitutes the real ground of distinction between the political conditions of the two countries." The Four Gospels and Acts of the Apostles, in Greek, with English Notes, Critical, Philological and Exegetical; Maps, Indexes, etc., together with the Epistles and Apocalypse. The whole forming the complete Text of the New Testament. For the use of Schools, Colleges, and Ecclesiastical Seminaries. By Rev. J. A. SPENCER, A.M. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1847. "One of these impressions is, that there is a general wish in America that England should be revolutionized, and a republic founded on the ruins of the monarchy. I think it the duty of every American gentleman travelling in Europe to endeavor to remove this impression by stating, what is undoubtedly the fact, that all intelligent and well-informed Americans wish well to Eng. land and to the English Constitution as it now stands; of course, including such gradual improvements and progress as it is all the time making to adapt itself to the advancement of civilization, and to the changing spirit of the age. Such advances are not modifications of the Eng-forming this public sentiment. It is the existlish Constitution, they are only the working out of an essential function of the Constitution itself; for a capacity to follow and adapt itself to the progress of the times, has always been a remarkable feature of this most remarkable bond of union, and is as essential a part of it as the provisions for maintaining the prerogatives of the crown. With this understanding, Americans wish well to the English Constitution as it is. They desire no sudden or violent changes in English society, and no interruption to the vast operations of English industry. I do not think they wish for any diminution of the extent of English power. Wherever this power extends, in whatever quarter of the globe, there travellers can go with safety-there letters can penetrate, and merchandise be sent and sold. It is true that pride and ambition have, no doubt, powerfully influenced English statesmen in many of their measures; and English conquest, like all other conquest, has often been characterized by injustice and cruelty. All political action, as the world goes at present, is sadly tainted with selfishness and sin; and English administrations undoubtedly share the common characters of humanity. But still, after all, there has probaby been no government since the world began that would have exercised the vast powers with which the British government has been clothed, in a manner more liberal and just, both in respect to her own subjects and to foreign nations, than she has exhibited during the last quarter of a century, and is exhibiting at the present time. The enormous magnitude of the power she wields, and the extent to which its regulating effects are felt throughout the world, exert a vast influence on the extension and security of com. merce, and, consequently, on the welfare and physical comforts of the human race. In fact, it must be so. The English mind is in advance of all other mind in the Old World; they who exercise it are superior to all others on that stage; and if we, on this side of the Atlantic, can claim anything like an equality with them, it is only because we are English ourselves, as well as they. "Americans accordingly wish well to England. It is true, they are pleased to witness the advances which the English Constitution is making, especially as they tend in the same direction in which society is advancing in America. We might even desire to accelerate this advance a little in some things. But there is no desire to see a violent revolution, which should aim at making England democratic in form. In fact, the monarchical element in the English Constitu Dr. Spencer having "witnessed with deep regret the gradual and almost entire disuse of the Greek Testament as a part of liberal education," rightly judged "that some effort should be made to re-introduce the New Testament in the original into seminaries of sound learning throughout the country." One obvious step to this was the providing of a suitable school edition, which, strange to say, did not exist. Our own experience abundantly verifies Dr. S.'s assertion that nothing is to be found among the English and Continental issues of the proper dimensions. This is the more remarkable, as the Greek Testament is very much read in the English schools and universities, and that, too, by a not very advanced class of students; and there are several good English editions of some of the Gospels separately, and some very good ones of the Acts alone. It was suggested to Dr. Spencer by Prof. Anthon, whose pupil he had been, that he should prepare an edition himself; and we do not think the Professor has any reason to be ashamed of his pupil or to repent of his suggestion. The volume contains about 800 pages, two-thirds of which is occupied by the part commented upon. The notes, without being superabundant or otiose, are in general sufficiently explicit. We extract two as specimens, one on Acts ii. 3:— The Hebrew idiom speaks of the fire licking up fore they were submitted to the writers. It what it consumes.-xádio. This verb seems to, was, however, left to their option to assign to have no nominative: it is variously supplied. each of them either the real or a fictitious Bloomfield gives ἐκάθισε (scil. εκάστη τῶν name, and to arrange the series in any order γλωσσῶν, ἐφ' ἕνα ἕκαστον αὐτῶν, with the they pleased." sense, and there were seen, as it were, tongues of fire distributing themselves, and settling upon them, one on each.'” Perhaps hardly stress enough is laid here on the error of our received version, which translates διαμεριζόμεναι as if it were σχιζόμεναι or διασχιζόμεναι, “ cloven.” “deioidaiμLovedtegoug, ' much devoted to religious things,' more than others, on which the Athenians prided themselves. The word is susceptible of both a good and a bad sense; the former is here to be preferred. St. Paul never could have begun his address in the offensive manner in which the English version leads one to suppose that he did. His object was to conciliate, not harshly reprehend; hence he says, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that you are exceed ingly devoted to the worship of the deities;' which remark they would receive as a high compliment to themselves and to their city." We have but one fault to find with this edition. The root of almost every irregularly inflected verb is given, after the manner of a clavis. It may be said that the work will fall into the hands of many who need such assist ance, but we are thoroughly convinced that any one who intends to read Greek at all, must begin by learning his verbs, regular and irregular. Any delay upon this in the outset will prove a great saving in the end. The Sketches. Three Tales: 1. Walter Lorimer; 2. The Emblems of Life; 3. The Lost Inheritance. By the authors of "Amy Herbert," "The Old Man's Home,” and “ Hawkstone." New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1848. It is quite curious to see how these six sketches have been applied to three different stories. The effect on the fancy in reading them consecutively is almost ludicrously perplexing. We have to take the entire imagery of one story and suddenly transpose and apply it to another, entirely disconnected and differe ent. The idea might be productive of still more amusing incongruities by having a few more sketches, of life, rather than of scenery, and a larger number of writers. The same scenery might thus be made to apply to tragedy and comedy; one illustration could give an "affecting narrative," another a "thrilling sketch," another a “tale of fashionable life,”— in short, if a little care were used in getting up the sketches, there is no end to the variety of incident that might be strung upon them. It should be suggested to some publisher to issue a dozen sketches at once and advertise for writers, offering to take the twenty best and most diverse that should be written in a given time, and publish them, with the sketches, in a vol ume. But these tales have great merit, aside from the ingenuity of their construction. They are thoughtfully and elegantly written, and bear the impress of pure, refined, and elevated minds. They are somewhat didactic, and are evidently the productions of deeply religious spirits; yet neither the moral purpose nor the piety is so obtrusive in them as to make them unreadable, or bring them under the head of "instructive" or "religious" stories. They are pleasant reading for quiet parlors and sober families. An Illustrated History of the Hat, from the This is a capital treatise. It goes fully into These three tales are not unworthy the dis- the subject, irons it out with the iron of learntinguished reputation of their writers. The ing, brushes up its nap with the camel's hair of chance thought which gave rise to them was a fancy, and leaves it implanted on the reader's fortunate one, and the stories bear witness to understanding with the firm-seated solidity of a its having been carried out in the manner good fit. Though not divided into heads, it is stated in the preface: "This little volume had by no means a shapeless mass, torn and fractured its origin in the following circumstance. It with rents, or crushed with ominous dents; on was suggested as a Christmas amusement, that the contrary, it has the uniform glossy texture one of a party should draw a series of sketches, without, and cleanly arrangement within, which the rest should severally interweave into which are marks of excellence in books as some short story or description. The original well as in hats. The mass of information it plan has been faithfully adhered to: the en- affords, is truly surprising. It begins, as all gravings, therefore, are not illustrations of the histories ought to do, with the remotest antiletter-press, but the letter-press of the engrav-quity, and after carrying round the hat through ings. The sketches themselves are in fact the various epochs of time, and chiefly of Engviews of actual scenes, and were finished be-lish history, leaves it finally at "its ultimate degree of excellence "-i. e. the present spring fashion, we suppose. Some of its speculations are no less ingenious than just. "In the melancholy fate which befell that fair-haired youth Absalom, the Scriptures afford a striking instance of the danger of not wearing a covering upon the head. If Absalom had worn a hat, it is very certain that his hair could not have caught in the branches of the oak tree. It is not likely that he rode out bareheaded; but it is probable that in the skirmish with Joab his hat fell off, and was thus the cause of his death." This reminds us of some modern medical treatises, which begin with showing from the Psalins particular diseases with which King David was afflicted. Our author, who generally writes very well, appears to have made a slight slip in the last clause of the above; for how Absalom's hat, because it fell off, could become the cause of his death, it is not easy to discover. We are very far from cottoning, also, to the following opinions : "Stubbes belonged to that very virtuous class of writers, not wholly extinct even now, that rail against the fashions of men's apparel, as though there were intrinsic good or evil in the shape and color of a coat; who judge of a man's morals by the pattern of his vest, and regard the texture of his pantaloons as a test of religious principles. It is time that the philosophy of fashion were better understood, but the plan of this little book prevents an expression of our opinions on this important subject. The latest fashion is always the best, because it is of necessity an improvement on the one which it supplants; therefore, to rail at an existing fashion is simply to rail at improvement. If a fashion were perfect, it would be permanent; but no fashion ever can be perfect, because man being endowed with the capacity of improvement, he can never arrive at a point beyond which he cannot advance. Progress is the law of our nature, and progress implies infinity. The possibilities of human improvement have not been dreamed of. A conservative, unim proving people, like the Chinese, never change their fashions, because they make no progress, or at least their progress is so slow, that it is not perceptible. There is no such thing as stability with nations." To this it might be replied that the changes in the shape of hats are not always improvements, since old fashions come round again so often. Therefore we may be allowed to rail at existing fashions if we please. But granting that every change in hats is an improvement, these changes are ones of simple form, not based on reason, or taste, but wholly arbitrary, and beyond our control; the hatters e these for us twice every year, for which taxed nine dollars per annum. But ress which is the law of our nature In most other matters, operate in this manner. In our social and political condition it should be borne in mind that pure innovation s are not, though for argument's sake it be admitted they are with hats, necessarily advances towards perfection. They are forms and states based on reason, knowledge, character, experience, and hence those elements must concur in the changes, or else there will be no real progress. Some people at the present day seem to think that governments are like hats; that we may change the block as often as we please, and it will be sure to be for the better. They even go beyond the hatters; for whereas those worthy members of society are content to allow our headgear to remain stationary six months at a time, these would have states live forever in a condition of pure democratical revolutionary bloody flux-progressing infinitely, pell-mell, everywhere. There is great probability that the hats worn by social reformers of this order do not in every instance conceal the largest possible amount of medullary substance. CORRECTIONS.-There is an error in Griswold's "Prose Writers of America," which attributes to R. H. Dana an article on Moore, written by Prof. E. T. Channing of Harvard University. We devote a paragraph to the correction of it, because the mistake was followed in an article on Mr. Dana in this Review for March, 1847. Prof. Channing's article N. A. Review for Nov., 1817, vol. vi. was on "Lalla Rookh," and appeared in the Another sentence in the article on Mr. Dana, would seem to make him the author of a review of Brown, which appeared in the N. A. Review, vol. ix., and was also written by Prof. Channing. A review of Brown, by Mr. Dana, appeared in the U. S. Review for Aug., 1827— much later. If these reviews were of merely ordinary merit, it would be superfluously nice to give even a sentence to settling questions of their parentage; but they are thoughtful and elabo rate essays, and by no means destined to a transitory fame. Only a small edition (five hundred copies) of the N. A. Review was issued previous to and during the editorship of Prof. Channing, who was assisted by Mr. Dana, and copies are, now scarce. To our young readers and writers, many of the best essays of those gentlemen are, necessarily, as entirely unknown as if they had never written them. They owe it to us, to the "rising generation," as well as to their own reputations, to give us collected editions of their works; and we feel very confident that in respectfully urging the request that they would do so, we speak in accordance with the wishes of our whole literary public. |