weary captives in pagan Babylon, their tearful hearts turned back to their beloved Jerusalem: By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down: yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, 'Sing us one of the songs of Zion.' How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" That burst of sadness is of itself a fond and precious song.

CYRUS A. BARTOL,

A COLLEAGUE of Dr. Lowell in the ministry of the West church, Boston, is a graduate of Bowdoin of 1832, and of the Harvard divinity school in 1835. He has published numerous occasional sermons, and is the author of two volumes, The Christian Spirit and Life and The Christian Body and Form. He brings in these discourses a somewhat elaborate literary style, uniting metaphysical insight to poetical sentiment, to the usual exhortations of the pulpit. He has in preparation a volume of meditative essays suggested by a recent European tour. A miniature book of selections from his writings has been made, entitled Grains of Gold.

ALLSTON'S BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST-FROM A DISCOURSE ON PERFECTION.

In yonder village, a painter paces, in quiet meditation, his little room. Beautiful pictures has he sent forth to charm every beholder; but he alone is not satisfied. He draws some grand theme from the mighty chronicle of the Bible. He would turn the words of the rapt prophet into colors. He would hold up to the eyes of men a scene of the divine judgments, that should awe down every form of sin, and exalt every resolve of holiness in their hearts. The finished result of his labors is shortly expected. But the idea of perfection has seized with an overmastering grasp upon him, and it must give him pause. How shall that awful writing of doom be pencilled on the plastered wall? How shall that finger, as it were of a man's hand, and yet the finger of God, be revealed? How shall those voluptuous forms below, that have been all relaxed with the wine and the feast and the dalliance of the hour, be represented in their transition so swift to conscience-stricken alarm, prostrate terror, ineffectual rage, and palsied suspense, as they are confronted by those flaming

characters of celestial indignation, which the soothsayers, with magic scrolls, and strange garb, and juggling arts, can but mutter and mumble over, and only the servant of Almighty God calmly explain? How shall it be done according to the perfect pattern shown in the Mount of Revelation of God's word! The artist thinks and labors, month by month, and year after year. The figures of Babylonish king and consort, of Hebrew seer and maiden, and of Chaldee magician, grow into expressive portraits under his hand. The visible grandeur of God the Judge, over against the presumptuous sins of man, approaches its completeness. The spectator would now be entranced with the wondrous deline

ation. But the swiftly conceiving mind which shapes

out its imaginations of that dread tribunal, so suddenly set up in the hall of revelry, is not yet content. The idea of perfection, that smote it, smites it again. The aspiration after a new and higher beauty, that carried it to one point, lifts it to another, and bears it far aloft, in successive flights, ever above its own work. Yet still, on those few feet of

canvas, the earnest laborer breathes out, for the best of a lifetime, the patient and exhaustless enthusiasm of his soul. He hides the object, dear as a living child to its mother, from every eye, and presses on to the mark. If he walks, he catches a new trait of expression, some new line of lustrous illumination, to transfer to this painted scripture which he is composing. If he sleeps, some suggestion of an improvement will steal even into his dreams. In weariness and in sickness, he still climbs slowly, painfully, to his task. In absence, his soul turns back, and makes all nature tributary to his art. And on his expiring day he seizes his pencil to strive, by another stroke still, after the perfection which flies before him, and leaves his work as with the last breath of his mouth, and movement of his hand, upon it, to show, amid unfinished groups, and the measured lines for a new trial, that, if absolute perfection cannot be reached here on earth, yet heights of splendor and excellence can be attained, beyond all the thoughts of him whom the glorious idea has never stirred. What a lesson for us in our moral and religious struggles! What a rebuke for our idle loiterings in the heavenward way! What a shame to our doubtings about that perfection to which God and Christ and apostles call!

GEORGE WASHINGTON GREENE. GEORGE WASHINGTON GREENE, the son of N. R. Greene, and grandson of Major-General Greene of the Revolutionary army, was born at East Greenwich, Kent county, Rhode Island, April 8, 1811. He entered Brown University in 1824, but was obliged to leave the institution in his junior year in consequence of ill-health. He next visited Enrope, where, with the exception of a few short visits home, he remained until 1847. In 1837 he received the appointment of United States consul at Rome, an office which he retained until his recall by President Polk in 1845. On his return he became professor of modern languages in Brown University. In 1852 he removed to the city of New York, where he has since resided.

During Mr. Greene's residence in Italy he devoted much attention to the collection of materials for a history of that country from the fall of the Western Empire in 476 to the present time, and was about preparing the first volume of his proposed work for the press when he was com pelled to lay aside the undertaking in consequence of the failure of his eyesight.

In 1835 he published an article in the North American Review, the first of a long series of contributions to that and other critical journals of the country. A portion of these papers have been collected in a volume with the title Historical Studies, published by G. P. Putnam in 1850. The titles of these are Petrarch, Machiavelli, The Reformation in Italy, Italian Literature in the first half of the Nineteenth Century, Manzoni, The Hopes of Italy, Historical Romance in Italy, Libraries, Verazzano, and Charles Edward. It will be seen from the enumeration that the subjects Italian history or literature. The exceptions are treated of are, with two exceptions, drawn from such but in part, for in all discourse of libraries the ancient home of learning must be prominent, and the Italian burial-place of the exiled Stuarts has probably contributed much to the perpetuity of their reputation.

During the last year of his residence in Rome

Mr. Greene prepared a life of his grandfather, General Greene, for Sparks's American Biography. Since his return to the United States he has been engaged in arranging the papers of General Greene for publication, and in the preparation of a more extended biography to accompany the work. The first volume of this important contribution to American history will appear during the winter of 1855-6, and will contain a new and elaborate life of the General. The remaining six will be occupied with his official papers, public and private letters, etc. On the completion of this work it is Mr. Greene's intention to resume his History of Italy. In 1854 he edited an edition of the Works of Addison, in five volumes.

BOTTA, THE HISTORIAN.

The same causes which concurred in giving him so decided a taste for the best writers of his native tongue, led him to view with particular fondness the school in which they had been formed. His profound knowledge of Latin favored the cultivation of this partiality, and enabled him to study at the very sources of classic eloquence. Hence, when he took up his pen for the composition of history, it was with a mind warm from the meditation of Livy, of Tacitus, and of those who, by treading closely in their footsteps, have formed the most durable school of modern history. Thus the form of his works, naturally, we had almost said, necessarily, became classic. His narrative is arranged and conducted with consummate art. Sketches, portraits, and full descriptions are disposed at proper intervals, according to the nature and importance of the incident or of the person. If there be an important question to weigh, he puts it in the form of a debate, and makes you a listener to the discussions of the actual heroes of the scene. It is thus that he brings you to the grave deliberations of the Venetian senate, or placing you, as it were, in some hidden recess, discloses to you the midnight counsels of a band of conspirators. And often, so powerful is the charm of his eloquence, you feel excited, chilled, terror-struck,-moved, in short, by turas, with all the feelings that such a scene is calculated to awaken.

His narrations, if compared with those of the great historians of antiquity, will be found to possess two of the highest qualities of which this kind of writing is susceptible; clearness and animation. He never wrote until he had completed his study of the event; and then, by the assistance of a most exact and retentive memory, he wrote it out just in the order in which it arranged itself in his head. He was thus enabled to give his narrative that appearance of unity of conception, which it is impossible to communicate, unless where the mind has, from the very first, embraced the subject in its full extent. The glow of composition, moreover, was never interrupted, and he was free to enter with the full force of his feelings into the spirit of the scenes he was describing. Hence many who deny him others of the higher qualities of an historian, allow him to be one of the most fascinating of narrators,

His descriptions have more of the warmth of poetry in them than those of any other modern historian with whose works we are acquainted. Here, indeed, he seems to be upon his own ground; and, whether he describe a battle-field, a midnight assault, a sack, the siege or the storming of a city or of a fortress, the convulsions, in short, of man or of nature herself, he is everywhere equally master of his subject. His eye seems to take in the whole at a glance, and seize instinctively upon those points which are best calculated to characterize the scene.

If he leaves less to the reader than Tacitus or Sallust, the incidents that he introduces are so well chosen, that they seize forcibly upon the imagination, and never fail to produce their full effect. His description of the flight of the French exiles from Savoy, of the passages of the Alps by Bonaparte and by Macdonald, of the sack of Pavia, of the siege of Famagosta, and of the earthquake in Calabria, may be cited as equal to anything that ever was written. Read the taking of Siena by Cosimo the First. You are moved as if you were on the spot, and were witnessing with your own eyes that scene of horror. You can see the band of exiles worn down, emaciated, by watching and by want. The whole story of the past is graven upon their deathlike countenances. As the melancholy train moves slowly onward, sighs, tears, ill suppressed groans force their way. They touch even the hearts of the victors. Every hand is stretched out to succor and to console. But grief and hardship have done their work. Their files were thin, when they passed for the last time the gate of their beloved home; but, ere they reach the banks of the Arbia, many a form has sunk exhausted and death-struck by the way. And, to complete the picture, he adds one little touch, which we give in the original, for the force of the transposition would be lost in English. “Sapevano bene di aver perduto una patria, ma se un' altra ne avrebbero trovata, nol sapevano."

The portraits of Botta are not equal to the other parts of his writings. No writer ever described character by action better than he; but, in the uniting of those separate traits which constitute individual character, and those slight and delicate shades which diversify it, he often fails. The same may be said of his views of the general progress of civilization. He never, indeed, loses sight of this capital point; and some of his sketches, such for example as the whole first book of his "History of Italy from 1789," are admirable; but the development of the individual and of society, and their mutual and reciprocal action, are not kept so constantly in view, and made to march on with the body of the narrative, with all that distinctness and precision, which we have a right to expect from so great a writer.

The moral bearing of every event, and of every character, is, on the contrary, always placed in full relief. Here his judgment is never at fault; and the high and the low, the distant and the near, are alike brought with stern impartiality to answer for their deeds at the tribunal of historical morality. "O si," he cries, addressing himself, after the relation of one of the most horrid acts ever perpetrated, to those who flatter themselves with the hope that their greatness will always prove a sufficient screen from the infamy that they deserve, "infamativi pure co' fatti, che la storia vi infamerà co' detti." And nowhere is the goodness of his own heart more apparent than in the delight with which he dwells upon those few happy days which sometimes break in like an unexpected gleam of sunshine upon the monotonous gloom of history; entering into all the minuter details, and setting off the event and its hero, by some well-chosen anecdote or apposite reflection.

Of his style we have, perhaps, already said enough. Purity of diction, richness, variety, and an almost intuitive adaptation of construction and of language to the changes of the subject, are its leading characteristics. The variety of his terms is wonderful; and no one, who has not read him with attention, can form a correct idea of the power and inexhaustible resources of the Italian. A simple narrator, an exciting orator, soft, winning, stern, satirical at will, consummate master of all the secrets of art, he seems

to us to have carried many parts of historical composition to a very high pitch of perfection; and, if in some he appear less satisfactory, it is because he falls below the standard that we have formed from his own writings, rather than any that we have derived from those of others.

ANDREW JACKSON DOWNING

Was born at Newburgh, in the Hudson Highlands, October 30, 1815. His father was a

A. I Downing

nurseryman at that place, and died in the year 1822. The family were in humble circumstances, and Downing's education was confined to the teaching of the academy at Montgomery, near his native town. At the age of sixteen he joined his brother in the management of his nursery. He formed soon after the acquaintance of the Baron de Liderer, the Austrian Consul-General, and other gentlemen possessed of the fine country estates in the neighborhood, and began to write descriptions of the beautiful scenery about him, in the New York Mirror and other journals. In June, 1838, he married the daughter of J. P. De Wint, Esq., his neighbor on the opposite side of the Hudson. His first architectural work was the construction of his own house, an elegant Elizabethan cottage. In 1841, he published his Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, adapted to North America, with a view to the Improvement of Country Residences, with Remarks on Rural Architecture. It was highly successful, and orders for the construction of houses and decoration of grounds followed orders for copies to his publishers. He next published in 1845, The Fruits and Fruit Trees of America. In 1846 he was invited to become the editor of the Horticulturist, a small monthly magazine published in Albany. He accepted the charge, and wrote an essay a month for it, until the close of his life.

In 1849 he added Additional Notes and Hints to Persons about Building in this country, to an American reprint of Wightwick's "Hints to Young Architects."

In 1850 he visited England for the purpose of obtaining a competent assistant in the large architectural business which was pressing upon him. He remained only during the summer, visiting with great delight those perfect examples of his art, the great country seats of England. In the same year appeared his Architecture of Country Houses; including Designs for Cottages, Farm-houses, and Villas. In 1851 he was commissioned by President Fillmore to lay out and plant, in pursuance of an act of Congress, the public grounds in the city of Washington, lying near the White House, Capitol, and Smithsonian Institution. He was actively employed in this and other professional labors of a more private character, when on the 27th of July he embarked with his wife on board the steamboat Henry Clay for the city, on his way to Newport. As they proceeded down the river it was soon found that the boat was racing with its rival the "Armenia." It was too common a nuisance to excite alarm, until the boats were

near Yonkers, when the Henry Clay was discovered to be on fire. In passing from the lower to the upper deck Mrs. Downing was separated by the crowd from her husband, and saw him no more, until his dead body was brought to their home the next day. He was seen by one of the passengers throwing chairs from the upper deck of the boat, to support those who had leaped overboard, and a little after struggling in the water, with others clinging to him. He was heard to utter a prayer, and seen no more. His Rural Essays were collected and published in 1853, with a well written and sympathetic memoir by George W. Curtis, and "A Letter to his Friends," by Miss Bremer, who was Mr. Downing's guest during a portion of her visit to this country, and a most enthusiastic admirer of the man and his works.

Downing's employments have undoubtedly exercised a great and salutary influence on the taste of the community. His works, in which he has freely availed himself of those of previous writers on the same topic, have been extensively read, and their suggestions have been realized on many an acre of the banks of his native Hudson, and other favorite localities. His style as an essayist was, like that of the man, pleasant, easy, and gentle manly.

EDMUND FLAGG.

EDMUND FLAGG is descended from an old New England family, and the only son of the late Edmund Flagg, of Chester, N. H. He was born in the town of Wiscasset, Maine, on the twentyfourth day of November, 1815. He was graduated at Bowdoin in 1835, and immediately after went to the West with his mother and sister, passing the winter at Louisville, where he taught the classics to a few boys, and was a frequent contributor to Prentice's "Louisville Journal." He passed the summer of 1836 in wandering over the prairies of Illinois and Missouri, writing Sketches of a Traveller for the "Louisville Journal," which were afterwards published in a work entitled The Far West.

During the succeeding fall and winter, Mr. Flagg read law with the Hon. Hamilton R. Gamble, now Judge of the Supreme Court of Missouri, and commenced practice in the courts. In 1838, he edited the "St. Louis Daily Commercial Bul letin," and during that fall published The Far West in two volumes, from the press of the Harpers. In December, he became connected with George D. Prentice, Esq., in the editorship of "The Louisville Literary News-Letter." In the spring of 1840, in consequence of ill health, he accepted an invitation to practise law with the Hon. Sargent S. Prentiss, of Vicksburg, Miss., a resident of that place.

or The

In 1842, Mr. Flagg conducted the "Gazette" published at Marietta, Ohio, and at the sme time wrote two novels-Carrero, Prime Minister, and Francis of Valois, which were published in New York. In 1849-) he conducted the "St. Louis Evening Gazette;" and, for several years succeeding, was "Reporter of the Courts" of St. Louis County. In the meantime, he published several prize novels, among which were The Howard Queen, Blanche of Artois, and also several dramas,

successfully produced in the theatres of St. Louis, Louisville, Cincinnati, and New York.

In the spring of 1848, Mr. Flagg went out as Secretary to the Hon. Edward A. Hannegan, American Minister to Berlin. The appointment afforded him an opportunity to travel over England, Germany, and France. On his return, he resumed his residence and the practice of the law at St. Louis. In 1850, he received the appointment of consul for the Port of Venice, under the administration of President Taylor. He visited England and Wales, travelled through central Europe to Venice, and entered upon the duties of his consulate, corresponding in the meantime with several of the New York Journals. In the fall of 1851, he visited Florence, Rome, Naples, and the other Italian cities, and in November embarked at Marseilles for New Orleans. On his arrival, he proceeded to St. Louis, and took charge of a democratic newspaper at that place.

In the following year, his last work was published in New York, in two volumes, entitled Venice, The City of the Sea. It comprises the history of that capital from the invasion by Napoleon, in 1797, to its capitulation to Radetzky, after its revolution, and the terrible siege of 1848 and '49. A third volume, to be entitled North Italy since 1849, is, we understand, nearly ready for publication.

In 1853 and 1854, Mr. Flagg contributed a number of articles illustrating the cities and scenery of the West to the United States Illustrated, published by Mr. Meyer of New York. Mr. Flagg has also written occasional poetical pieces for various magazines.*

RICHARD H. DANA, JR.,

THE author of "Two Years before the Mast," was born at Cambridge in 1815. He is the son of Richard H. Dana the poet. In his boyhood, he had a strong passion for the sea, and had he consulted his inclination only, would have entered the Navy. Influenced by the advice of his father, he chose a student's life at home, and entered Harvard. Here he was exposed to one of those difficulties which college faculties sometimes put in the way of the students by their mismanagement. There was some misconduct, and an effort was made to compel one of the class to witness against his companion. Dana, as one of the prominent rebels, was rusticated. As it was on a point of honor, it was no great misfortune to him, the less as he passed into the family, and under the tutorship of the Rev. Leonard Woods, at Andover, now the president of Bowdoin-with whom he enjoyed the intimacy of a friend of rare mental powers and scholarship. On returning to Cambridge, an attack of measles in one of the college vacations injured his eye-sight so materially, that he had to resign his books. For a remedy, he thought of his love of the sea, and resolved to rough it on a Pacific voyage as a sailor, though he had every facility for ordinary travel and ad

venture.

On the 14th of August, 1834, he set sail accordingly in the brig Pilgrim from Boston, for a voy

The Native Poets of Maine.

Vich CH. Dance Jr

In the year 1840, he published an account of this adventure in the volume Two Years before the Mast, a Personal Narrative of Life at Sea.* For this, he received for the entire copyright but two hundred and fifty dollars, a fact which shows the very recent low standard of American literary property. A publisher now could hardly expect so lucky a windfall. It was immediately successful, passing through numerous editions, bcing reprinted in London, where the British Admiralty adopted it for distribution in the Navy, and translated into several of the languages of the Continent, including even the Italian. It has been quoted, too, with respect for its authority on naval matters, by Lords Brougham and Carlisle in the House of Lords.

The work, written out from his journal and notes of the voyage, was undertaken with the idea of presenting the plain reality of a sailor's life at sea. In this, its main object, it has been eminently successful. It has not only secured the admiration of gentle readers on shore, but, a much rarer fortune, has been accepted as a true picture by Jack himself. A copy of the book is no unusual portion of the scant equipment of his chest in the forecastle. Its popularity is further witnessed by the returns of the cheap leg libraries in England, where it appears on the list of the books in demand. The eie is obvious. The author is a master of rise, and the story is told with a thorough. It is probably the most truthful aft's

Harpers' Family Library, how Ist

life at sea ever written. Its material is actual experience, and its style the simple straight-forward language of a disciplined mind, which turns neither to the right nor to the left from its object. It is noticeable, that in this universally read book, the writer uses the technical language of the ship; so that the account is to that extent sometimes unintelligible. On this, he makes a profound remark. "I have found," says he, "from my own experience, and from what I have heard from others, that plain matters of fact in relation to customs and habits of life new to us, and descriptions of life under new aspects, act upon the inexperienced through the imagination, so that we are hardly aware of our want of technical knowledge." It has, too, this advantage. A technical term can be explained by easy reference to a dictionary; a confused substitute for it may admit of no explanation. Good sense and good humor sum up the enduring merits of this book. It is life itself, -a passage of intense unexaggerated reality.

Mr. Dana had, after his return from abroad, entered the senior class at Harvard, from which institution he was graduated in 1837, when he pursued his studies at the Law-School under Judge Story and Professor Greenleaf. His proficiency in these preparatory studies in moot courts and the exercises of his pen, showed his acute legal mind, and when he began to practise law his success was rapid. He was aided in maritime cases by the reputation of his book; while he employed his influence to elevate a much abused branch of practice, though in Boston it takes a higher rank from being pursued in the United States Courts. His practice is also extensive in the State Courts.*

In 1850, Mr. Dana edited, with a preliminary preface, Lectures on Art and Poems, by Washington Allston.t

His Seaman's Manual is a technical dictionary of sea terms, and an epitome of the laws affecting the mutual position of master and sailor. It is reprinted in England, and in use in both countries as a standard work.

Of late, Mr. Dana has been prominently before the public as a member of the Free-Soil party of Massachusetts, and in his vigorous opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law. His speech in the case of the negro Anthony Burns, in 1854, is noticeable, not only for its acute analysis of the evidence offered, but for its clear picturesque statement. The life-like character of some of its descriptions-though no personal remarks were made on any individual-inspired a cowardly, brutal street attack, in a blow struck at his head by a slung shot, which, had it varied a little, would have proved fatal.

In a later case, an argument before the Supreme Court of Maine, at Bangor, July 22, 1854, in an action brought by a naturalized citizen of the Roman Catholic faith, for injuries in the removal of his child from the public school, in consequence of the parents' rejection of the ordinary version of the Bible read there, and consequent interference with the school regulations, Mr. Dana has pro

The account of Dana in "Livingston's American Lawyers," Part iv. June 1852, contains references to his important cases up to the time when it was written.

+ New York, Baker and Scribner, 1850.

nounced not merely an eloquent, but an able, legal, and philosophical argument in defence of the superintending school committee, and of the accepted translation of the Scriptures. His argument was sustained by the judgment of the court.

In 1853, Mr. Dana was prominently engaged in the State Convention of Massachusetts. His course there, in the discussion of topics of enlarged interest, determined his rank in the higher walk of his profession.

We are enabled on this point to present adequate authority in a letter on the sul ject from a leader in the Convention, the Hon. Rufus Choate.

Charles Scribner, Esq.

BOSTON, Sept. 29, 1854.

SIR-I received some time since an inquiry respecting the position occupied by Mr. Dana in the Convention for revising the constitution of Massachusetts; to which I would have made an immediate

reply, but for an urgent engagement. When I was relieved from that, I unfortunately had overlooked your letter, which I have only just now recovered.

The published debates of that body indicate quite well, though not adequately, the space he filled in the convention. He took a deep interest in its proceedings; attended its sessions with great punctuality, and by personal effort and influence, and occasional very effective speech, had a large share in doing good and resisting evil. He was classed with the majority in the body, consisting in a general way of those friendly to its convocation, and friendly to pretty extended and enterprising schemes of change; but on some fundamental questions he differed decidedly from them, and upon one of these--that concerning the tenure of judicial office-he displayed conspicuous ability and great zeal, and enforced with persuasive and important effect the soundest and most conservative opinions. In general, there, as in all things, and in all places, he was independent, prompt, and firm; and was universally esteemed not more for his talent, culture, and good sense, than for his sincerity and honor. I differed often from him, but always with pain, if not self-distrust, with no interruption of the friendship of many years. I am very truly, Your serv't,

RUFUS CHOATE.

An article by Mr. Dana, on the Memoir of the Rev. Dr. William Croswell, whom he had defended in an able and eloquent speech on an Ecclesiastical trial in the North American Review for April, 1854, may be mentioned for its feeling and judicious estimate of a man to whom the Reviewer stood in the relations of friend and parishioner.

Mr. Dana is married to a grand-daughter of the Rev. James Marsh. His residence is at Cambridge, in the vicinity of the College.

HOMEWARD BOUND-FROM TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST.

It is usual, in voyages round the Cape from the Pacific, to keep to the eastward of the Falkland Islands; but as it had now set in a strong, steady, and clear south-wester, with every prospect of its lasting, and we had had enough of high latitudes, the captain determined to stand immediately to the northward, running inside of the Falkland Islands. Accordingly, when the wheel was relieved at eight o'clock, the order was given to keep her due north, and all hands were turned up to square away the yards and make sail. In a moment the news ran