1846.]

SKETCHES OF THE INDIAN TRIBES.

of another, and especially of a chief over whom his father had held and exercised authority. The colloquy became interesting, until, at last, some excitement, on the part of Mahaskah, grew out of it. On hearing it repeated by the agent that he must be mistaken, Mahaskah turned and looked him in the face, saying, 'Did you ever know the child that loved its mother, and had seen her, that forgot the board on which he was strapped, and the back on which he had been carried, or the knee on which he had been nursed, or the breast which had given him life? So firmly convinced was he that this was the picture of his mother, and so resolved that she should not remain by the side of Shaumonekusse, that he mother's name, Rantchewaime, is marked over said, I will not leave this room, until my the name of Eagle of Delight.' The agent of the work complied with this demand, when his agitation, which had become great, subsided, and he appeared contented. Looking once more at the painting, he turned from it, saying, "If it had not been for Waucondawork, which means walking god, so called, bemony (the name he gave to the agent of the cause he attributed the taking of these likenesses to him,) I would have kissed her, but Waucondamony made me ashamed.'

similar devices which excluded shadows, mortified that his mother, as he believed her to and other such unpleasing accidents-be, should be arranged in the work as the wife Lady Pentweazle, when big with the purpose of "calling up a look," which should take mankind by storm, were gentle and easily-contented customers compared with the Braves and the Medicine men, whom the founders of the school of American Art have been called upon to immortalize. Mr. Catlin, in his "Letters and Notes," gave us some whimsical and touching details of the "relations" which the court painter of the Indians has to hold with his sitters. Who has forgotten the anecdote of the Chief who came to the artist's tent, with an offer of six horses, and as much treasure besides as the magician chose to exact, so he might bear away the portrait of his dead daughter? The portraying of a Sioux chief, Mah-to-cheeja, "the Little Bear "-in profile, led to yet more serious results. Mr. Catlin had to pack up his brushes and run "the to save his scalp; since Shonka, Dog," found out that the "Little Bear," thus presented, was "only half a man!" The Red Men, as we have seen, do not love jests. The Dog's taunt bred an affray "Soon after this interview, the party went to which cost the Little Bear his life. The volumes before us afford us an addition to King's Gallery, where are copies of many of the above store of anecdotes; which, ere these likenesses, and among them are both the Eagle of Delight' and the Female flying Pigeon. The moment Mahaskah's eye caught we part from them, we shall extract:though conscious that it makes against us, the portrait of the Flying Pigeon,' he exand for those who consider the Squaw a claimed, 'That is my mother, that is her face, less suffering woman than the Mrs. Cau-I know her now, I am ashamed again.' He dles, Mrs. Grundys, and Mrs. Partingtons of our streets and squares, and villagegreens.

"It happened," says the memorialist of Young Mahaskah, the son of the Female flying Pigeon, "when Mahaskah was at Washington, that the agent of this work was there also. ** As he turned over the leaves bearing the likenesses of many of those Indians of the Far West, who were known to the party, Mahaskah would pronounce their names with the same promptitude as if the originals were alive and before him. Among these was the

likeness of his father. He looked at it with a

immediately asked to have a copy of it, as also of the 'Eagle of Delight,' wife of Shaumonekusse, saying of the last, The Ottoe chief will be so glad to see his squaw, that he will give me one hundred horses for it.'"

There are others, more competent judges of art than simple Mahaskah, will occur to every reader with whom (no offence to their connoisseurships) "the fan" makes the likeness.

It will be easily gathered from the above hasty notes and illustrations, that to comment upon the entire contents of these volcomposure bordering on indifference. On be- umes would lead the critic beyond all reaA parting word is, ing asked if he did not know his father, he an-sonable limits. Having given a fair sample, swered, pointing to the portrait, 'That is my we must here pause. father. He was asked if he was not glad to perhaps, required to assure certain excellent see him. He replied, 'It was enough for me persons, that because we have treated this to know that my father was a brave man, and work crotchet-wise, rather than in the cut had a big heart, and died an honorable death and dry "Encyclopedia" fashion; no disin doing the will of my Great Father.' respect to it has been meant. On the contrary, there are certain subjects more vividly brought home to us by familiar treatment and comparison, than by dissertations ex cathedra and this is among them. The

66* * *

The portrait of the Eagle of Delight, wife of Shaumonekusse, the Ottoe chief, was then shown to him. That,' he said, 'is my mother.' The agent assured him he was mistaken. He became indignant, and seemed

book is a most interesting collection of raw materials, out of which a school of imaginative art might be constructed; but to lecture upon them, appealing the while to "the principle of the pyramid," would be to impugn our own common sense, and not to assist either teachers or people. We regard it as a valuable addition to the American's library-and as full of suggestion to all persons who love to look around and forward as well as to linger with fond reverence among the traditions of the Past.

From Tait's Magazine.

editor is probably thinking of Taylor the Platonist, who was far more distinguished for absurdity, and is now equally illustrious for obscurity. But that either of these Taylors, or both, or even nine of them, acting with the unanimity of one man, ever could have founded "a sect," is so entirely preposterous, that the accomplished editor must pardon my stopping for half a minute to laugh. The writer, whom Sir James indicated, was probably" Walking Stewart ;" a most interesting man whom personally I knew; eloquent in conversation; contemplative, if that is possible, in excess; crazy beyond all reach of hellebore; three Anticyre would not have cured him; yet sublime and divinely benignant in his visionariness; the man who, as a pedestrian trav

GLANCE AT THE WORKS OF SIR JAMES eller, had seen more of the earth's surface,

MACKINTOSH.

BY THOMAS DE QUINCEY.

The Miscellaneous Works of the Right

Hon. Sir James Mackintosh. Edited

and communicated more extensively with the children of the earth, than any man before or since; the writer also who published more books (all intelligible by fits and starts) than any Englishman, except perhaps Richard Baxter, who is said to have by Robert James Mackintosh, Esq. In published three hundred and sixty-five, plus Three Volumes, 8vo. London: Long-one, the extra one being probably meant for man & Co. leap-year. Walking Stewart answers enTHIS collection comprehends, with one tirely to the description of Sir James's exception, (viz., the History of England, unknown philosopher; his character was which is published separately), all that is of most "singular" his style tending alpermanent value in the writings of Sir James ways to the "unintelligible;" his privacy, Mackintosh. The editor is the writer's in the midst of eternal publication, most son; and he, confident in powers for higher absolute; his disposition to martyrdom, had things, has not very carefully executed the any body attempted it, ready and cheerful; minor duties of his undertaking. He has and as the "founder of a sect," considering contributed valuable notes; but he has his intense cloudiness, I am not at all sure overlooked some important errors of the but he might have answered as well as the press, and he has made separate errors of Grecian Heracleitus, as Spinosa the Jew, At page 387, vol. ii., Charles or even as Schelling the Teutonic ProfesVII. is described as King of Sweden, mean- sor. His plantations were quite as thriving ing clearly King of Denmark. At page as theirs; but the three foreigners fell upon 557, of the same volume, Sir James, having happier times, or at least (as regards the referred to " a writer now alive in England," last of them) upon a soil more kindly, and as one who had "published doctrines not a climate more hopeful for metaphysical dissimilar to those which Madame de Staël growths. Not only has the editor done that ascribes to Schelling," the editor suggests which he ought not to have done, but too that probably the person in his eye was Mr. often he has left undone that which he ought William Taylor of Norwich. This is the to have done. The political tracts of the most unaccountable of blunders. Mr. Tay- third volume require abundant explanations lor of Norwich was among the earliest Eng- to the readers of this generation; and yet lish students of German, and so far his the notes are rare as well as slight. name connects itself naturally with a notice of the De Allemagne. But, on the other hand, he never trespassed into the fields of metaphysics. He did not present any "allurements" in a "singular character," nor in "an unintelligible style;" neither was he the author of any "paradoxes." The

his own.

There is no need, at this time of day, to take the altitude, intellectually, of Sir Jas. Mackintosh. His position in public life was that of Burke; he stood as a mediator between the world of philosophy and the world of moving politics. The interest in the two men was the same in kind, but dif

[pleading, cannot have too much of it; let them perish, as regards history and reputation, by the arts which they practised."

King Christian, the Seventh of Denmark, came over to London early in the reign of George the Third:

"It was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid."

ferently balanced. As a statesman, Burke had prodigiously the advantage; not only through the unrivalled elasticity of his intellect, which in that respect was an intellect absolutely sui generis, but because his philosophy was of a nature to express and incarnate itself in political speculation. On the other hand, Sir James was far better qualified, by nature as well as by training, for the culture of pure abstract metaphysics. He came by contract, to fall in love with It is sometimes made a matter of regret that our Princess Matilda. But he had the misBurke should have missed the Professor's fortune to be "imbecile," which is a word chair which he sought. This is injudicious; of vague meaning; in fact, he was partially as an academic lecturer on philosophy, or a an idiot, and, at times, a refractory madspeculator in ontological novelties, Burke man. It has been remarked, in connexion would have failed. Not so Mackintosh. As with Mr. Galt's excellent novels, that at one to him, the regret would be reasonable; by time, (of course not the present time,) too detaching him from the cares of public bu-large a proportion of the Scottish lairds siness, a chair of philosophy would have were secretly, and in ways best known to widened the sphere of those higher specu- their households, daft; and in such a delations which, under his management, couid gree, that, if not born gentlemen, they not have been less than permanently profit-would certainly, by course of law, have been

able to the world.

To review so extensive a collection is clearly impossible within any short compass. I content myself with a flying glance at those papers which are likely to prove the most interesting.

MACKINTOSH ON STRUENSEE.

The case of Count Struensee is to this hour wrapped in some degree of darkness; but, even under those circumstances of darkness, it is full of instruction. The doubts respect Struensee himself, and the unhappy young queen, Matilda; were they criminal in the way alleged by their profigate enemies? So far there is a cloud of mystery resting on the case; but, as to those enemies, as to the baseness of their motives, and the lawlessness of their acts, there is no doubt at all, and no shadow of mystery. This being so, it being absolutely certain that the accusers were the vilest of intriguers, and unworthy of belief, for a moment, when at any point they passed the boundary line of judicial proof, certified to Christendom by public oaths of neutral parties, it follows, that the accused are every where entitled to the benefit of any doubt, any jealousy, any umbrage, suspicion, or possibility, against the charge which has arisen, shall arise, or ought to arise, in the brain of the most hair-splitting special pleader. They, that ruined better people than themselves by the wickedest of special

cognosced. Perhaps the same tendency, and developed in part by the same defects of training, at that time affected the royal houses of Europe. Christian VII., if, instead of being a king, he had been a Scottish laborer, would certainly have been "cognosced." Amongst other eccentricities, that recoiled eventually upon others, he insisted on his friend's thumping him, kicking him, knocking him down, and scratching him severely; and, if his friend declined to do so, then he accused him of high treason. Really you had difficult cards to play with this daft laird of Copenhagen. If you positively refused to thump him, then you were a rebel; an absolute monarch had insisted on your doing a thing, and you had mutinously disobeyed. If you thumped him, and soundly, (which was the course taken by his friend Brandt,) then you were ointed, and were liable to question from the a traitor; you had assaulted the Lord's anlex majestatis. To London did this maddown by the grave-digger in Hamlet-that man come; perhaps on the principle laid in England all men are mad; so that madness is not much remarked. The king saw London; and London saw him. But a black day it was for some people, when he

* "Cognosced."-A term well known to Scottish law, and therefore to Roman law. It means judicially reviewed and reported, no matter in reference to what. But, in common conversation, it has come elliptically to mean-duly returned as an idiot. Cognosco, it must be remembered, is the appropriate word, in classical Latin, for judicial review and investigation.

first set his face towards St. James's. The gems and frauds in the conspirators. The poor young princess Matilda, sister to case seems to tell its own story. It was George III., and then only seventeen years thought necessary to include Matilda in the old, became his unhappy wife; and Struen- ruin of Struensee, because else there was see, a young physician, whom he had pick- no certainty of his ruin; and upon that deed up at Altona, about the same time re-pended not only the prosperity of the inceived the fatal distinction of becoming his trigue, but the safety of the intriguers. The favorite, and his minister. The frail per- destruction recoiled upon themselves, if the sonal tenure of such a situation, dependent young queen regained the king's ear. But on the caprices of a man, imbecile, equally this could be prevented certainly by nothas regarded intellect and as regarded ener- ing short of her removal for ever from the gy of will, suggested to a cabal of court court. And that could be accomplished rivals the obvious means for overthrowing only by a successful charge of adultery. and supplanting the favorite. To possess Else, besides other consequences, the cabal themselves suddenly of the king's person, feared the summary interposition of Engwas to possess themselves of the state au- land. But of adultery, as they had no thority. Five minutes sufficed to use this proof, or vestige of a proof, it became neauthority for the arrest of Struensee,- cessary to invent one, by obtaining a conafter which, as a matter of course, followed fession from the queen herself. And this his close confinement, with circumstances was obtained by practising on her credulity, of cruelty, now banished every where, even and her womanly feelings of compassion for from the treatment of felons; to that suc- the unfortunate. She was told by the ceeded his pretended trial, his pretended knaves about her, that an acknowledgment penitence, his pretended confession, and, of guilt would save the life of the perishing finally, his execution. minister.

Sir James Mackintosh notices the exter- There is something in this atrocious. nal grounds of suspicion applying to the falsehood as to Struensee, a part of the story publications against Struensee, and partic- which is not denied by any party, remindularly the doubtful position in respect to the ing one of the famous anecdote about Colconspirators of Dr. Munter, the spiritual onel Kirke, in connexion with Monmouth's assistant of the prisoner. This man was rebellion; a fable no doubt in his case, but employed by the government; was he not realized by the Danish conspirators. They used as a decoy, and a calumniating traitor? won their poor victim to what she abhorred, That point is still dark. He certainly pub- by a promise that could have offered no lished what he had no right to publish. Sir temptation except to a generous nature; James is disposed, on the other hand, to and, having thus gained their villainous obfind internal marks of sincerity in the doc- ject, they did not even counterfeit an effort tor's account of his conversations with to fulfil the promise. A confession obtained Struensee. But were not these in their under circumstances like these, would very nature confidential? And Sir James weigh little with the just and the considerhimself remarks, that nobody knows what ate. But where is the proof that the queen became latterly of Munter himself; so that did make such a confession? No body of the vouchers for his veracity, which might state-commissioners ever received any thing have been found in subsequent respectabil- of the kind from her own hands; nothing ity of life, are entirely wanting. General remains to attest it but the two first letters Falkenskiold's Memoirs make us acquainted of her name, having written which, she is with the artifices used to obtain from the unhappy young queen a confession of adul- *Sir J. M, though manifestly inclined to adopt terous intercourse with Struensee. And, weakens the case by saying "If General Falkthis account of the pretended confession, a little if these artifices had been even unknown enskiold was rightly informed," as though the into us, it must strike every body, that such a validation of the confession were conditional upon confession being so gratuitously mischiev-the accuracy of the General. But in fact, if his ous to the queen, is not likely to have been made by her, in any case, where she was free from coercion, or free from gross delusion. Equally on the hypothesis of her guilt or her innocence, the poor lady could have had no rational motive for inculpating herself, except such as would imply strata-hand.

account were withdrawn, the conspirators are in a still worse position; for the unfinished signature, confessedly completed surreptitiously by some alien hand, points strongly towards a physical compulsion exercised upon the queen,such as had given way, and naturally would give letters had been extorted by forcibly guiding her way, under a violent struggle, after one or two

charges and scandals; charges that arose in self-interest, and scandals that were propagated by malice.

said to have fainted away; but who wrote the words above her fraction of a signature, without which the signature is unmeaning, and when they were written, whether before The moral of the story seems to lie in its or after that fractional signature, nothing exposure of the ruins and the absolute survives to show. Besides, if Munter's ac- chaos worked by a pure despotism. All count of penitential confessions in prison hangs by the thread of the sovereign's per(many of which argue rather the abject de- sonal character. Here is a stranger to the pression from a bread-and-water diet, and land suddenly raised from the dust into a from savage ill-treatment, than any sincere station of absolute control over the destinies or natural compunction) are to be received of the people. His rise, so sudden and unagainst Struensee, much more ought we to merited, calls forth rival adventurers; and receive the dying declarations of the young an ancient kingdom becomes a prize for a queen; for these were open to no suspi- handful of desperate fortune-hunters. Is cions of fraud. Three years after her pre- there no great interest in the country that tended confession, she declared to her spir- might rally itself, and show front against itual attendant, M. Roques, that, although this insufferable insult? There is none. conscious of imprudences, she never had Had the case arisen in the old despotisms been criminal. This was her solemn de- of France or of Spain, it could have been claration, in the midst of voluntary peniten- redressed; for each of them possessed antial expressions, and at a moment when she cient political institutions that would perknew herself to be dying. Strange indeed, haps have revived themselves under such a considering her youth, and her unhappy provocation. But in Denmark there were position amongst enemies, knaves, and a no similar resources. The body of the Junatic husband, if she had not fallen into some imprudences.

people, having no political functions, through any mode of representation, were utterly without interest in public affairs; they had no will to move. The aristocracy had no power, unless in concert with the king. And the king was a lunatic. All centred, therefore, in half a dozen ruffians and their creatures; and the decencies of public justice, the interests of the innocent, with the honors of an ancient throne, went to wreck in their private brawls.

GRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY.

This is the most valuable of all the twen

Meantime, Sir James Mackintosh is almost certainly wrong in his view of the course adopted by the English government. He imagines that, from mere excess of indisposition to all warlike movements at that time, this government shrank from effectual interference. But evidently the case was one for diplomatic management. And in that way it was effectually conducted to the best possible solution, by the British ambassador, Sir Robert Murray, who frightened the guilty intriguers out of their wits. Once satisfied that nothing would be at- MACKINTOSH'S DISSERTATION ON The protempted against the life of the queen, England had no motive for farther interference, nor any grounds to go upon. She could not have said,-"I declare war against you, because you have called a daughter of ty-eight tracts here collected. At the outEngland by the foul name of adulteress." set, however, (p. 10,) it shocks the sense of The case was too delicate, and too doubt-just logic not a little to find Sir James layful. Even now, after some light has been ing down the distinction between the Moral and the Physical Sciences, as though "the obtained, the grounds for a legal judgment are insufficient on either side; then, they purpose of the Physical were to answer the question-What is? the purpose of the were much more so. The English govern- Moral to answer the question-What ought ment must also have been entirely controlled, in such a case, by the private wishes of to be? Yet at p. 233, Sir James himself makes it the praise of a modern writer, the royal family; and it was a natural feeling for them, when no prospect existed of a affections" rather physiologically than eththat he professes to have treated the moral fair judicial inquiry, amongst those, who, in fighting against the queen, would be fight-ically; as parts of our mental constitution, ing for their own lives, to retire from a feud that could only terminate in fixing the attention of Europe upon the miserable

* "The praise:" and even the special or separate praise of that writer; which is far indeed from being true.