sciousness that all belong to the same society, the intellect and some of the heart must be and by mutual respect for each other's adroit- united before such thoughts can be clothed in ness; so the letter-writers of high society such language. would, in the opinion of Lord Chesterfield, We must hasten on to the last of the stages gain the feeling of a brotherhood by the recog- of letter writing which we have pointed out, nition on the part of every writer of the ele- and speak of the art as it appears in the hands gancies of his correspondent. To write a good of those who, building their success on the fetter, was to be a gentleman on paper; and labors of their predecessors, but having no though the excellence of letter-writing must, in one sense, be unavoidably a literary one, yet the art was, in the phase it assumed under Lord Chesterfield, regarded in an aspect as far from its literary one as possible.

direct or conscious aim, carry into simple and natural life the beauties and graces we have hitherto seen blooming in an artificial soil. That which has been premeditated, becomes unpremeditated and spontaneous. The art is The most characteristic of Lord Chester- lost, but yet the fruits of the art are perpetufield's letters are undoubtedly those to his son, ally present. We seem to escape from all for he expounded the whole of his social and necessity of criticism, and may indul,te ourmoral scheme with much precision and open- selves in the pure pleasure of unalloyed adness, for the benefit of the dull, deceitful, awk-miration. The letter writer no longer wishes ward youth whom he hoped to train into a to approach the great world, or to ward off model of elegance. those who are ambitious of its supremacy;

We cannot help suspecting that Lord Ches- there is no humoring of the caprices of a terfield, in these famous letters, is sometimes narrow set-no seeking to devise means -how soliloquizing when he pretends to be address- a system, philosophically commented on, may ing his correspondent, and that he would have be sustained and preserved in its integrity. owned, if hard pressed, that he himself was At the same time, the writer does not write the imaginary object to whom those stately like one of a careless generation, anxious to and graceful periods were directed. He can save the tenth post of the day, and inclosing hardly make-believe sufficiently strong to per- in an adhesive envelope the crude thoughts suade us or himself that he is writing to less and hasty expressions he blots upon a sheet of than another Chesterfield. But whatever note paper the size of a crown-piece. These were his real feelings in addressing his hope- artless artists, these consummate performless son, it is certain that he never neglected ers of the last century, wrote with deliberate to write in a manner that should do justice to dignity and a proper choice of words, although himself. He never descends beneath the dig- a certain natural happiness of expression, and nity of a great nobleman; he carefully avoids the advantage they derived from following anything like the petulance, the gossiping, more artificial writers, enabled them to handle the small littlenesses of Horace Walpole. If their craft so divinely. But when we speak we do not find his letters absolutely to our of their being preceded by the writer whom taste, it is because we cannot now feel as the we have noticed above, and of this being a society of his day felt, and as he wished his subsequent stage of the art, we must not let son should feel; it is not that, if we could our readers suppose that we use these terms throw ourselves into the atmosphere of that according to strict chronology. We do not society, we should detect any point in which mean that the historical date of the third Lord Chesterfield fell below it, or indeed any class of letter writers is necessarily posterior point in which he did not resolutely keep him- to that of the second. Gray was a year older self and his little world up to the very highest than Horace Walpole, and was long outlived pitch which was compatible with the princi- by him. We speak of the one type of letter ples on which that society was based. Per- writing as subsequent to the other, because it haps the very essence of all the letters to Mr. must have been preceded by the state of Stanhope, the best specimen of all that is society which only received its expression good and all that is bad in Lord Chesterfield's contemporaneously with, or perhaps even later correspondence, is to be found in his letters than its own manifestation. Looking at the addressed to his son when at Paris, in 1751. whole history of the century, we may say Let any one read the letters of that year, who that the narrow but highly trained society of wishes to catch truly the destinies of Lord the times of George II. expanded into the Chesterfield's mental portrait. He will find wider and more natural society of the days much, perhaps, to make him congratulate of Johnson and Burke, although there were himself that the past is past, that the days of men in the times of George II. who seem George II. are no more; but he will confess much more akin to those of the later date that here, if anywhere, is the success attained than to those who were strictly speaking their which that society admired, that here the most contemporaries. After the letter writters of faithful reflection of the spirit of those times the times of George II., a class succeeded who is offered, and that many great qualities of wrote with more ease and less affectation, and

yet received from those who had gone before short of his possibilities, and unfavorably afthem the traditionary notion that letter writ- fect the writings of other poets by the anxious ing was an art. Among these, Gray is con- care he cultivated and inculcated. But in his spicuous, and we need not hesitate to adopt letters we seem to have all the good and none him as a representative. Every day, in real of the bad attending his habits of composition. life, we see how the accidents of worldly posi- He relaxes his grim watchfulness over himtion determine a man's chronology. The nom- self and his style, and still we may trace, in ince of a peer is in Parliament before his the most hasty of these effusions, the fruits of beard begins to grow, and has an official air his habitual vigilance. He is impelled by the and an inflexible political creed by the time he very nature of his task, to write with speed is twenty-five, while his school or college con- and to abandon himself to the impulse of the temporary struggles through a profession, and moment. But in the propriety of every exat fifty they meet on the arena of public life, pression, in the restraint he exercises over his the one almost a generation younger than the pen, so as never to fall into any excess or reother. dundancy, and in the position of self respect, Gray was neither wholly in the world nor not to say of authority, which he occupies wholly out of it. He wrote from the calm towards his correspondent, we trace the lime retreat of a Cambridge College, but he had labor, the habits of patience and stern selfpersonal friends who mixed in the busy and denial, the dignity that abhors meretricious the fashionable world, and he himself occa- effect of every kind, which eminently charsionally quitted his retirement to spread his acterize his more studied compositions. wings in the gayety of the metropolis.- Gray was what would ordinarily be called a His letters reflect his manner of living. They cold man; he was overshadowed by a perpetare full of the savoir vivre which can only be ual melancholy, and his path, even in youth, attained by intercourse with society, and yet was darkened by the faintly-revealed presence they bear constant witness to the dignified of the fatal disease which bore him, in the reserve of the literary recluse, and the grace ripeness of his faculties, to the grave. But, and knowledge of the student and the philoso- though he loved solitude and resolutely inpher. Above all, they delight us by their trenched himself within a hallowed ground of perfect freedom from anything like a conscious privacy, into which the world was not suffered aim. They breathe an elegance and are in- to intrude, his letters reveal how much there spired with a vivacity such as is found in the was in his nature that was genial and even Odes of Horace, where we know how great gay. On fitting occasions he could write with the art is, but where the sense of art is lost a tender and manly pathos, and a depth of in the sense of its perfection. Gray had in- sympathizing affection, that dispel effectually deed every qualification for a letter writer, any notion of his melancholy being of a morand his letters are, we venture to think, un- bid and selfish cast. Nor are there wanting rivalled in the English language. He is grave passages in his correspondence where his sense and gay, humorous, learned, satirical, tender, of the ludicrous, his desire to interest the by turns, and he passes from one mood to friend he is addressing, and the animation inanother with the most unfailing ease and by spired by near approximation to stirring events the most imperceptible transitions. He writes wake him to a light and free gayety, and indeed as if he knew that he could write a let-prompt him to paint the minor details of a ter well, and wished to do what he did successfully; but the feeling that prompts him to exert himself is not vanity, but merely the consciousness of power.

subject that tickles his fancy. When we come upon such passages, we experience none of the counterbalancing sensations with which the somewhat parallel writing of Horace Walpole is sure to fill us. Gray is without any of the air of the petit-maître and the smallness of mind and purpose which are apparent in all that Walpole ever wrote.

Whatever Gray wrote was written with the utmost labor. He toiled at a verse, he cast and recast it, he criticized it as ruthlessly as if it were the offspring of another's brain, he let it lie by, and then, years after, took it from When we pass to the letters of Cowper, we the drawer where it slumbered, and dispas- pass entirely away from the direct influence sionately analyzed its constitution, and pro- of the great world. Gray was on the borders, nounced judgment upon its defects and merits. but Cowper lived altogether in another region. The man who can bear to work so slowly It was the peculiar marvel of his position, the is sure to write nothing inferior to himself; peculiar triumph of his epistolary powers, that we get his best when we get anything. But from the seclusion of an insignificant countryhow few men can thus become their own town, where he lived among middle-aged critics without losing fire, point, energy, the ladies and low-church clergymen, he could rough and unpremeditated graces of a care- find materials for letters so beautiful, so interless and vigorous scribbler. Perhaps we must esting, and so varied. The art of letter-writallow that Gray did, in some measure, falling has reached the point in which it becomes

part of the mental furniture of a literary man and lives in a village. Nothing but contact whose natural tastes led him to love and culti-with the world can keep a successful author vate all that was gentle and graceful in thought humble. Cowper tried conscientiously to and language. Criticism seems to resign its smother an emotion he thought reprehensible, envious office when it views these pure effu- but it is easy to see that the snake is scotched sions of a sweet and loving soul. We may and not killed. The imperfection of his atindeed find defects in them, but it is hard to tempts is apparent in his anxiety to impress feel these defects critically, for the general atmosphere of soft and warm emotion and tenderness prevents us from even noticing what might elsewhere annoy us. The greatest number of readers would find the greatest pleasure in Cowper's letters of any letters in the language, and though we venture to think that the superior manliness apparent in those of Gray is a sufficient reason for withholding our assent to this as a final test of superiority, yet it needs but the perusal of a very few of Cowper's fascinating pages to make us, for the moment, sure that his must be of all letters the best.

upon his correspondents that he is utterly careless of literary success. He describes himself as a writer sans reproche, a bright example to the tribe, a man proof against the stings of sarcasm and the whispers of flattery. And perhaps in the next sentence he tells us that Olney laurels are worthless, but that he may perhaps mention what my neighbor Mr. So-and-so has said of The Task, or he acknowledges with fervent gmtitude any scrap of favorable criticism which his correspondent has communicated to him. These are the smallnesses which ereep over almost every recluse, and we may say of the life of a genius in a country circle what Touchstone remarks of his shepherd's life, that 'in respect that it is solitary it may be liked very well, but in respect that it is private it is a very vile life.'

Cowper had one advantage that was denied to Gray. He numbered among his correspondents ladies near enough in kinship to permit complete unreserve, and remote enough to make an air of subdued gallantry sit naturally There is in this as in other ways an abon him as he wrote. His cousin Lady Hes- sence of thorough self-dependance, force, and keth drew out all his powers. He could tell energy manifested in Cowper's letters, that her the minutest details of his Olney life; he contrasts unfavorably with Gray's resolute, could freely confide to her the touching inci- reserved, dignified bearing. But with this dents of his own melancholy history, and at allowance we see no deduction that has to be the same time she was a kind and discerning made in speaking of Cowper as a perfect critic of his poetical efforts. As he built up letter-writer. The grace of his English is story after story of his poetical edifices, what magical; it seems hardly possible that a writer so natural as to report progress to this dear should have had such language at command cousin, and to find or to pretend to find in her without any apparent exertion requisite for its taste a canon which should regulate his per-production. There is a more perfect absence formance? Then if she were absent-and if of studied effect and a more sustained felicity she were not there would be no occasion for a of language in Cowper than in Gray. Cowper letter at all-how delightful to sketch schemes for a visit, to spend leisure hours in looking for a suitable abode throughout the wide extent of Olney, and to send off graphic pictures of this and that little room which would make a fitting residence for her ladyship when the summer came, Accounts of his advance in translating the Iliad and descriptions of Olney lodgings literally fill page after page of perhaps the most delightful part of his correspondence, and continue to give pleasure to thousands of readers now that the translation is forgotten, and the houses in Olney are, as we may presume, falling or fallen. It is the presence of this admired, this loved, this inspiring cousin that seems to float through the exquisitelyframed periods of the poet, and let all who can picture what such a cousin must be, confess that they do not wonder Cowper outshines himself when he writes to Lady Hesketh.

Perhaps the greatest drawback to our pleasure in Cowper's letters is the display of vanity, a fault from which it is scarcely possible that any one should be free who acquires fame

too writes from a home, with far more of domestic feeling and domestic interests than was possible for the isolated student at Cambridge.. This lends a charm to correspondence, the absence of which is not easy to compensate. Cowper's letters will always be the more popular, and if we wished to show a stranger to the literature of the last century how letters can be written, we should refer him to a chosen volume of Cowper's correspondence.

With Cowper our list is closed. There were many of his contemporaries, and there have been many since, who have written letters that are full of all that makes letters delightful. But so far as they may have been unconsciously acted on by the notion of letterwriting as an art worked out by and handed down through a series of successive artists, they may be represented by Cowper as far the most eminent and skilful of them. the time of Cowper, the art of letter-writing may be said to have quickly perished. How this happened must be obvious to any one who reflects on the change undergone towards

After

the close of the century throughout the whole ter of the times. We have been forced by structure of society, and on the causes, politi- the narrow limits of our space to treat this recal and moral, that conduced to this alteration. lation in a somewhat cursory manner, but we Society changed, and the art that suited and are convinced that the more closely the subbelonged to the old society did not suit the ject is examined, the more clearly will the new. That we can thus fix the end as well as correspondence of its great letter-writers be the beginning of the period within which the recognized as an exponent of much that was art flourished, makes it much easier to ascer- most peculiar in the eighteenth century. tain the relation it bore to the general charac-'

NEW BOOKS.

the work from high authorities, so that we preWe have received the following new books sume it will be a standard work in thousands of libraries.] from the publishers :

The Religious Denominations in the United States: their History, Doctrine, Government, and Statisties with a preliminary sketch of Judaism, Paganism, and Mohammedanism. BY JOSEPH BELCHER, D. D. Embellished with nearly two hundred engravings. Published by J. E. Potter, Philadelphia.

The Forest Exiles; or, the Perils of a Peruvian
Family amid the Wilds of the Amazon. By
Capt. MAYNE REID. With twelve illustra-
tions. Ticknor & Fields, Boston.

[We venture to say that no boy will ever refuse this book. True, we judge only from ourself; but a mere look at the table of contents is enough, beginning with the Biggest Wood in the World, and running through Poison Trees, Sup[THIS is a handsome octavo, of more than a per of Guapo, Puna, Wild Bull of the Puna, thousand pages. From some acquaintance with Lamas, Alpacas, Vicunas. Capturing a Condor, Dr. Belcher, we have no doubt that it is written The Lone Cross in the Forest, Coral Snake, in a very catholic and charitable spirit toward Tracking the Tapir, Poisoned Arrows, Cannibal those who differ from him. "In some former Fish, and so on to the number of fifty. Then publications of this character, the boast has been here are the very good drawings, well engraved, made that every article has been prepared by an of scenes that we should like to read about. See author belonging to each particular denomina- the monkeys on the bridge of vines! But we tion; and assuredly this plan has its own pecu-have no time to loiter over these enticing wonliar excellences; but it does not always ensure ders. If the publishers wish our readers to know impartiality, while goes far to destroy the what kind of book it is, let them show it up in unity of style and manner in the volume, and our advertising pages.] occasions frequent repetition of the same matters of doctrine and practice. On these accounts, the principle has been adopted of collecting the facts as much as possible from the parties immediately interested, and then to write each article in the most kind and impartial manner."

One of the advantages to be derived from such a work is set forth by the author with a simplicity which is arch, and perhaps not without a spice of malice. It is that when we oppose any sect from which we differ, we may at least be acquainted with the history and principles against which we argue. It has been no uncommon case, in the history of religious controversy, to find that much time, labor, and temper have been wasted in opposing what never existed. It is well that we should be able, on this matter as on others, to say with the apostle Paul, "So fight I, not as one that beateth the air."

Whenever we have any controversy with the denomination to which Dr. Belcher belongs, we shall be glad to have him for an opponent: sure then of an early peace, even without the destruction of his Sebastopol-which, by the way, we do not desire, if he will turn it into a peaceful harbor for all, and not fire upon those who go by.

There are abundant commendatory notices of

Literary Fables of Yriarte. Translated from the
Spanish by GEO. H. DEVEREUX. Ticknor &
Fields, Boston.

[A graceful contribution from a foreign cele-
brity, by an American translator.]
Sermons: Chiefly Practical. By the Senior Min-
ister of the West Church in Boston. Ticknor
& Fields, Boston.

truth is sincerely sought, only when it is sought
[All sermons ought to be practical. Religious
in order to be obeyed. It would have been even
profane in Saul to say, "Lord, what wouldst thou
have me to do?" if he had not been ready to do
what he was told.]

Flower Fables. By LOUISA MARY ALCOTT.
George W. Briggs & Co., Boston.

LITTELL'S LIVING AGE-No. 557.-27 JAN, 1855.

Robbers! who lived would but lessen your shar- and the metal still rings as true as it did in June,