LORD BYRON.

BY REV. WALTER COLTON, UNITED STATES' NAVY.

A LETTER FROM STURZ: NOW FIRST TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN.

'London, August 24th, 1768.

I LEFT this city early yesterday morning, accompanied by Murphy, the dramatist, on a visit to the country seat of Mr. Garrick, where I have passed one of the happiest days of my life.

It was a most voluptuous summer morning. A light transparent vapor, such as we see in the landscapes of Claude, trembled over the fields, and the face of nature was improved by the veil. I felt as if I were borne upon ether. Every thing around me was smiling in delight. Such joyful feelings of existence are enough to banish all the sophisms touching the predominance of ill in this good world.

The dwelling of Garrick is a little palace, of beautiful proportions. It stands upon the bank of the Thames, which here winds through richly-settled and elaborately-ornamented grounds. His garden, as it is called, is but a plat of clean and verdant turf, scattered about which, without regard to symmetry, is a variety of shrubbery and trees. Near the water, stands that British sanctuary, the Temple of Shakspeare. The statue of the Immortal is of white marble, in life size. In the expression which the artist has given him, he seems transported among the scenes he has himself created, and to be listening to the song of Ariel.

There is little style or pretension in the interior of Garrick's dwelling; but a serene, noble simplicity pervades the apartments.

Here and there are to be seen objects which mark the peculiar genius, and sometimes the humor, of the possessor. The tapestry is all of light, soft, and agreeable colors, hung with excellent pictures of the most renowned actors and actresses, taken en rôle. Here are the four celebrated originals, by Hogarth, entitled 'The Election.' A fifth, by the same master, is yet more remarkable. It was intended as the first of a series of four paintings, to represent The Happy Marriage,' which was to have been a counterpart to his renowned 'Marriage à la mode;' but whether nature was deficient in models for this subject, or the artist in invention, I do not know. Only one of the pictures is commenced, and in this, the head of the bride is alone completed. Hogarth here shows himself to be a skilful painter of beauty. A more soft, lovely, and altogether attractive countenance, has seldom been produced. I also saw Garrick's portrait, by our country-woman, Angelica Kaufmann, painted in gray; and another on China, copied from Reynolds, in which Garrick appears as a disguised Chinese. While among the productions of art, I must not neglect to speak of a small box, made from the sacred mulberry tree, in the shade of which Shakspeare was wont to repose. This relic is exhibited with the most devout emotion.

But you desire to hear something of the man and of the actor. I shall not speak to day, and perhaps never; for Professor Lichtenberg has said all that can be said on this subject. You are already aware that Garrick is a handsome man. It is true, he is not a demi-god in person, being a little below medium size; and he wants about a pied du Roi, to realize the ideal forms of the Greek and Roman heroes, or what the French term, the high tragic stature.' Yet his figure is neat and comely; full, without being fat; firm and nervous. When he speaks, his whole body is animated, and every play of his muscles, every external movement, accords admirably with the inward emotions. I think I have never seen so expressive a face, or limbs which seemed more fully and gracefully to participate in his theme. While Previllon was once enacting the part of a drunkard, to an admiring audience, Garrick cried out to him, Your feet are sober!'

You observe, at first sight, that gayety, raillery, and hence comedy, are natural to Garrick. A keen humor, a satirical Hudibrastic archness, flashes from his eyes; yet as it is always united with great hilarity of feeling, it rather attracts than repels. You may imagine what entire control, and what creative power, he must possess over his physiognomy, to hide so completely such original stamps of nature, when in his great tragic characters; and still you must fall short in your conceptions, unless you know the man, and then see him as Lear, in the storm-scene, or his hell-visage in the battle scene of Richard.

Garrick associates with the first of the land, and is much honored and beloved by them. Fortunately for his friends, he has not contracted that tone of the haut société which fetters, by conventional laws, the freedom and the glad impulses of nature. This noble tree could not be transformed into a clipped garden hedge. He allows free play to his humor, and believes that mirth and heart-felt laughter form the grand elixir of life. The character of his wit is shown in his epilogues and prologues, which abound in facetious contrasts, pleasing equivoques, jeu-de-mots, and apt quotations from the ancient and modern dramatists, or from his favorite poet, Horace. The

qualities of his heart you may best learn from his epistolary correspondence with his friends, where a light, flowing style is the vehicle of the most noble feelings. He is prolific in anecdotes, and acts what he relates; frequently converting mere bagatelles into dramas. The features and voice of others are accurately reflected in his own. Here, too, we see something of that language of action, which is so true to nature, and so effective, in his great tragic personations. I recently beheld the power of this silent language, in the daggerscene of Macbeth. A gentleman who was in my company at the theatre, wholly unacquainted with the English language, fell horrorstricken and senseless upon the floor, while Garrick was clutching the 'air drawn-dagger of the mind.’

SEALS ON OLD LETTERS.

MEMORIALS are ye, of time passed away!
Vain words, kind records, echoes mid decay:
Crest and device, and proud emblazoned seal,
Emblem and motto, what doth each reveal?

Behold! A leaf: 'I only change in death!'
No amaranth wert thou, in friendship's wreath,
Fairest Adele ! - false gem in beauty set!
Leaf born to wither-doomed to unregret!

Lo, here! The shears: 'We part to meet again.'
Atropos fell hath clipped thy thread in twain,
Peerless Leona! rose of purity!

Death to his garland sad hath gathered thee!

An altar fire, and cross, revered for aye;
The motto 'L'amour et la verite.'

Fair seeming words, and fairer seeming token;
Flame, quenched in Lethe!-

cross, too rudely broken!

A carrier dove, and the initial 'D. ;'

Thy letters all are 'carrier doves' to me,
O my sweet sister! thou so treasured still,
Where'er I wander, or in joy or ill;

Time, that nor spareth kindred nor degree,
Hath left unscathed the heart that shrineth thee!

A lantern, here, and 'Brighter hours will come :'
Thou hast gone down in shadow to the tomb,
O friend beloved! Green leaves are on the trees,
The summer wind plays lightly in the bough;
But thee the green leaf glads not, nor the breeze;
Seeking for light! for light! beyond the skies,
Thou hast passed on in hope, but even now,
E'en to the glorious gate of paradise!

The turbaned Moor, borne by our house's line,
By one who dwells in eastern lands afar,
And one, who, tossed upon the foaming brine,
Steers his lone bark by yonder radiant star;

Ye, lingerers long!- thou, 'neath a burning sky,
Thou, where the storm-vexed waters onward sweep;

Oh! be a sister's love the beacon high,

To point ye homeward o'er the pathless deep!

A cypher here, on a fair field impressed;

God of the orphan! Thou hast spared, and blessed

My mother! Nay, why count that friends are flown,

While ye, the true, are left? — ye, and the dead! mine own!

HEAD-QUARTERS:

OR THE ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: A SKETCH OF LONG-ISLAND, DRAWN FROM LIFE.

BY THE AUTHOR OF 'THE CIRCUS,' ETC.

THOSE persons prophesied truly, who said that the November elections would be the hottest ever contested in the town of —, and throughout the whole of Queens county. So equally were the parties balanced, that the majorities were calculated by units, and the slightest dereliction on the part of either, would be enough to turn the scale of victory. The most powerful efforts were therefore to be made by each, to bring their entire weight to bear, while those who took no active part, were about to look on with the eagerness of those who gaze upon the ground where Greek meets Greek, in an exactly equal contest, and where skilful tactics keep the issue in

suspense.

The faction whose motions we are chiefly to consider, had upon their ticket for assemblyman, the name of Mr. Silas Roe, a gentleman who was a butcher by profession, a man of good intentions, of unflinching honesty, and of no education. This last attribute was not considered essential by the party who had placed him in nomination. They had much rather he should 'toe the mark,' and did not like your men of college learning. Such persons, they said, were above the people, not of them, and could not know their wants. Their principles on this point had found a triumphant vindication in Mr. Roe's predecessor, the Hon. Sandy Fink, who, it was notorious, could hardly write his own name, and yet who stood forth so prominently in the field of politics, and received the favor of his constituents so often, that I shall begin by presenting a slight sketch of his political career.

MR. SANDY FINK was descended from an illustrious race of clammen, who dwelt on the south side of Long-Island. There is a place called Rockaway, open to the sea, whether so named from a race of Indians, now extinct, or from the rocking of the waves, I cannot tell. In summer, it is an acceptable retreat for citizens, who flee from the fury of the dog-star, or from the odors of the town. Here, when you have escaped the weary monotony of home, you may enjoy that public privacy, which is so congenial to the reflective mind; the screaming of many children trundling their hoops, and the delightful society of nurses. To these advantages, which are common to other watering places, Rockaway annexes others, which are peculiarly its Here is a noble Pavilion, with a piazza overlooking the sea, and epicurean tables, which all the elements are ransacked to supply. Before you is an illimitable stretch of white sands, and the sea, the sea, the open sea,' rolling in boundless magnificence. It is impossible to enumerate all its delights. By day, the breeze comes up cool and refreshing; every night there are dances; and Neptune is delighted with the sound of the viol, blending with the music of the waves.

own.

Not far from this place lives the Hon. Sandy Fink. He occupies the comfortable abode of his fathers, and followed, until very lately,

the same pursuits. These were sufficiently indicated by the appearance of the premises. Seines and nets were extended over the fences; here sat a bevy of decoy-ducks, and there lay oars, harpoons, eel-spears, and all the implements of fishery. Living on a small farm, he made some attempts at husbandry; but the characteristic of the soil, on the south side,' is sand; and although the plough-share had done its duty, and mossbonkers and horse-feet had been strewn over it, to enrich it, it yielded, in the best seasons, only a miserable crop; so that Mr. Fink seldom experienced the exuberant complacency of the worldling, who invited his soul to take its ease for many years, and to be merry, for his wine-presses were running over, his barns and his store-houses filled with plenteousness. He was an amphibious being; and when provisions were scarce, and the meal waxed low in the barrel, it would have gone hard with him if he could not have taken to the water.

He straitway seized his spear, and began to stab eels in the neighboring creek. Now as many persons have never learned to discriminate rightly between an eel and a snake, I do assure them, on the faith of an islander, that when the skin is stripped off, from the head to the tail, and they are skilfully fried, they are a sufficiently dainty dish to set before the king. Mr. Fink said he should never starve, as long as there were any eels to stab. But he often went into the bay to catch clams, which he accomplished by jumping into the water, and scooping them out of the sand with his toes. When he had obtained more than he wanted for his own use, or could find a market for, in his own neighborhood, he put them into barrels, and getting. out his disconsolate horse, and rope harness, set out on a slow walk for the New-York market. By a long course of persevering industry, his circumstances were rendered a little easier, and he became the owner of the fourth part of a schooner, which went to the metropolis for ashes, and which was called the 'Sally-Ann.' Up to the time of his nomination for the assembly, ambition was a passion which had never entered his soul; unless, indeed, you dignify by that title the eagerness which he sometimes manifested, when he went into the bay, that he might

-'have good luck that day, And catch a load of clams.'

The way that he came to be nominated for assembly, was this: the inhabitants of Rockaway had enough to employ them in summer; but when the season had passed away which rendered it a place of fashionable resort, and winter had frozen up the resources of industry, and turned its grandeur into dreariness, they met at evening in the taproom of a small tavern, to dissipate their time in cups, and to discuss the politics of the day. It was surprising to remark the warmth and violence of these Rockaway politicians, which sometimes waxed so great as to rise above the roar of the sea. They hauled public characters over the coals without remorse, and freely called in question their public acts; while shark stories came in, by way of episode, and the tales of a marine people.

Mr. Fink often formed one in the midst of these social circles; and here he acquired that relish for public affairs, which will probably