worked hard in the garden, he was tolerably | those who thought with Newton came to hear well and mentally easy; but when he quit- him, and crowded his church. The churchted work, he become melancholy, and in wardens proposed a plan for thinning the fact insane. When it was proposed to him congregation by getting occasional substito leave Newton's house, the depressed poet tutes for the popular rector, who, however, wept and bemoaned himself. It was a truly did not aquiesce in it. Christian act in the country parson to cherish and entertain the unhappy bard.

That Newton was not so wholly destitute of wit as his Diary would suggest, appears in the annexed verses, which he wrote to Cowper after the publication of Madan's once notorious book entitled Thelyphthora; or, a Treatise on Female Ruin':

What different senses in that word, a wife!
It means the comfort or the bane of life.
The happiest state is to be pleased with one,
The next degree is found in having none.

66

Whitefield was often heard by Newton, who greatly admired his preaching, and liberally esteemed him as a true Christian brother, although he was a dissenter. Newton had heard much about Whitefield before hé listened to the preacher himself. When he did attend his preaching, he wrote, "Behold the half was not told me." Throughout his course Newton was thoroughly liberal and a brother-loving Christian. We can easily believe that "he was a man of a most When Newton proposed to publish a series loving and tender spirit. He was attracted of religious letters, which were selected from as by the necessity of his nature to every his actual correspondence with affluent, carespirit congenial with his own.” Once a lit-less, and wavering professors, he applied to tle sailor boy, with his father, called on New- Cowper for a title. Can you," says he, ton, who took the boy between his knees," compound me a nice Greek word as pretty told him he had been much at sea himself, in sound and as scholastically put together and then sang him part of a naval song. All this is pretty and pleasing enough. Newton is most largely and lastingly known to the Evangelical world by his share in the simple but truly pious Olney Hymns. Of these he himself wrote no less than two hundred and eighty, and Cowper sixty-eight. Every reader of this hymn-book knows that Cowper is the poet, and Newton the religious rhymer. Some of Newton's rhymes are still sung and affectionately remembered - especially three: Glorious things of thee are spoken;" and Begone, unbelief," and "Approach, my soul, the mercy-seat." These hymns are the good man's best diary. When Newton quitted Olney to become the rector of St. Mary Woolnoth, in London he found" but two gospel ministers who have churches of their own" in the Establishment in this great metropolis one was himself and the other Mr. Romaine. Naturally

66

66

as Thelyphthora, and [of] as much more favourable import as you please, to stand at the top of the title-page, and to serve as a handle for an inquirer?" Cowper replied with " Cardiphonia," or utterance of the heart. It now appears that many of these letters were orignally addressed to the Earl of Dartmouth and to several clergymen, while others were written to ladies, married and single. There exist besides more than a hundred letters addressed by Newton to his servants to whom he seems to have been a kind master and a Christian monitor.

66

Full of faith and hope, and ripe in years, the contented diarist at length looked death in the face. "I am packed and sealed," he exclaimed, " and waiting for the past." In his eighty-third year he departed. He was a simple, loving, useful Christian. To say more would be untrue, to say less unjust.

A LIFE OF BENTLEY cannot be expected to controversies is very exact, though he has hardly present much novelty, but should be welcome to bestowed sufficient attention on the character and Englishmen for the enthusiastic admiration be- position of his opponents. An appendix constowed by the author upon the genius of our tains Bentley's notes on the first two books of great classical philologist. Herr Maehly is less the Iliad, from his MS. in the Library of Trinfavourable to Bentley's character as a man, but ity College. The notes on the other books are his discussion of Bentley's critical achievements still unpublished, though Bentley was Master is conducted con amore, and animated by the of the College, and his MSS. have reposed in the sympathy which can only be derived from a library for a hundred and twenty-six years. community of taste and feeling. His informa- They manage these things differently in Gertion respecting the details of Bentley's literary many.

Saturday Review.

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MR. CLAY ON A PROHIBITORY TARIFF.

duties on imports must be essentially reduced. He was then in the Senate. Mr. Verplanck in IN copying the following remarks from The the House of Representatives, with one or two New York Evening Post of 9 Feb., we cannot other members of the Committee of Ways and but add a few words to enforce a policy of peace. Means, was engaged preparing a bill for the reAt present the whole country is willing to bear duction of the duties on imports, which would the heaviest duties upon importation that will have passed both Houses, if no other plan had increase the revenue, and help pay the debt. been offered, when Mr. E. Littell, now the editor Would it not be wise in the manufacturers to be of the Living Age, a thorough-paced free-trade man, like the writer of this article, drew up the content with the great advantage which this scheme of the famous compromise tariff, by gives them, by which there may be a long period which the duties on imports were to be graduof incidental protection to a greater extent than ally reduced until the year 1842, when they were could otherwise be obtained? If they should, on all to be brought down to the rate of twenty per the contrary, contrary to all the lessons of expe- cent, on the value of the commodities imported. rience, succeed in getting up a prohibitory tariff, It was a measure sweeping away every vestige of protection, and laying duties solely for revethey will before long be obliged to submit to the nue. The scheme was shown to Mr. Clay; he inevitable revulsion which will cut them down to was pleased with it; he adopted it at once; he twenty per cent. again. Let us not get up a di- proposed it; he exerted all his eloquence to carry vision upon this question, which may again en- it through Congress; it became the law of the gender bitterness. What we all need, and land. "Pass this bill," he said, "tranquillize especially the manufacturers, is a permanent and the country, and I am willing to go home to stable course of trade to which industry and cap-In another speech on the same measure, he said Ashland and renounce public service forever."

ital will accommodate themselves.

Mr. Clay was never for prohibitory duties. He never declared himself in favor of a policy which would destroy the revenue. On the contrary, in his speech on the tariff of 1820, he said frankly, "I too am a friend of free trade, but it must be a free trade of perfect reciprocity." Again, "friendly as I am to domestic manufacturers, I would not give them unreasonable encouragement by protective duties." He complained in the same speech that "the measures of the government had at one period stimulated' manufacturers "too high." In his speech on the tariff of 1824 he declared that "the sole object of the tariff is to tax the produce of foreign industry." He never maintained the policy of excluding it. In the same speech he affirmed that the proposed tariff of 1824 would not "diminish the public revenue." He held that goods would still be imported, and "the revenue considerably increased." As to Great Britain, he held that her restrictive system was wisely adopted for the establishment and perfection of the arts," and that having "accomplished its purpose," the system might well be laid aside in that country.

that in a tariff" revenue is the first object, protection the second," a maxim which the protec tionists now in Congress have not inherited from

him.

In March, 1845, Mr. Clay withdrew from public life, closing his long career as a leader of the Whig party in Congress. In February of that year he expressed his satisfaction with the operation of the great free-trade measure which he had adopted and for which he had ob"It is a great tained a majority in Congress. mistake," he remarked, "to say that any portion of the embarrassments of the country has resulted from it." In another speech on the first of March he declared himself willing to abide by the essential principles of the compromise tariff, and argued earnestly in favor of a system of fixed ad valorem duties, although he thought that if necessary the rate of twenty per cent. might be exceeded.

CAPTAIN BURTON, the African traveller, has In short, Mr. Clay always kept an eye on the written a book on Brazil, which Mrs. Burton, revenue, disclaimed the policy of levying duties wife to the Captain, is commissioned by him to to diminish the revenue, and insisted on a policy see through the press. But the Captain is much which, as he thought, would improve our modes too loose in his theories about polygamy and his of manufacture and diminish prices. On the sarcasms against the Roman Catholic Church to diminution of prices he always laid a great stress, please his wife, so she adds a preface to the book particularly in his great speech on the American to explain that the Captain does not act up to System, delivered in 1832. What would he say his liberal notions regarding a plurality of wives to the enormous increase of prices, and the dis-("he is careful not to practice polygamy himtress of the working class under our present protective system?

Two years after the delivery of this speech he brought in his great free-trade measure, commonly called the Compromise tariff. His reflections had led him to the conclusion that the

self," his wife assures us), but leads "a good
and chivalrous life." Mrs. Burton further ex-
plains that she is very fond of her husband,
"but
she is compelled to differ with him on many other
subjects." Still they agree to differ and enjoy
their differences.

From N. Y. Evening Post, 3 Feb.
FITZ-GREENE HALLECK.
ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE NEW YORK HIS

TORICAL SOCIETY, BY WILLIAM C. BRYANT.

1790, was born. Poets, it is true, and poets of great genius, have been born in cities or in countries of the tamest aspect, yet I think it may truly be said that the sense of diversified beauty or solemn grandeur is awakened and nourished in the young mind by these qualities in the scen

THE following paper, containing some notices of the life and writings of FitzGreene Halleck, was read last evening before the New York Historical Society by W.ery which surrounds the poet's childhood. C. Bryant:

I have yielded with some hesitation to the request that I should read before the Historical Society a paper on the life and writings of Fitx-Greene Halleck. I hesitated because the subject had been most ably treated by others. I consented because it seemed to be expected by his friends and admirers, that one who like myself was so nearly his contemporary, who read his poems as they appeared, and through whom several of the finest of them were given to the world, ought not to let a personal friend, a genial companion and an admirable poet pass from us without some words setting forth his merits and our sorrow. It is, besides, a relief under such a loss to dwell upon the characteristic qualities of the departed. It seems in an imperfect manner to prolong his existence among us; as we repeat his words we seem to behold the friendly brightness of his eye; we hear the familiar tones of his voice. It is as when, in looking upon the quivering surface of a river, we see the image of an object on the bank which is itself hidden from

I do not find, however, in Halleck's verses any particular recognition of the uncommon beauty of the region to which he owed his birth. In the well-known lines on Connecticut he says:

"And still her gray rocks tower above the sea,

That crouches at their feet a conquered wave.
'Tis a rough land of earth, and stone, and
tree," &c.

In another passage of the same poem, where he celebrates the charms of the region, he speaks solely of the tints of the atmosphere and the autumnal glory of its forests:

"in the autumn time

Earth has no purer and no lovelier clime. "Her clear warm heaven at noon, the mist that shrouds

Her twilight hills, her cool and starry eyes, The glorious splendor of her sunset clouds, The rainbow beauty of her forest leaves," &c.

Yet that this omission did not arise from any insensibility to the beauty of form in landscape is sufficiently manifested by our eyes. the enthusiastic apostrophe to Weehawken, The southern shore of Connecticut, bor-which escapes from him, as if in spite of dering on the Long Island Sound, is a himself, in his Fanny, amidst the satirical beautiful region. I have never passed reflections which form the staple of the along this shore, extending from Byrom poem. He gave a higher proof of his afriver to the Paugatuck, without admiring it. Here the somewhat severe climate of New England is softened by the sea air and the shelter of the hills. Such charming combinations of rock and valley, of forest and stream, of smooth meadows, quiet inlets and green promontories are rarely to be found. A multitude of clear and rapid rivers, the king of which is the majestic Connecticut, here wind their way to the Sound among picturesque hills, cliffs and

woods.

It was at Guilford, in this pleasant region before which the Sound expands into a sea, that Halleck, on the 8th of July,

fection for his birthplace, withdrawing in the evening of life from the bustling city where the greater part of his years had been spent and where he had acquired his fame, to the pleasant haunts of his childhood, to dwell where his parents dwelt, to die where they died, and to be buried beside them. His end was like that of the rivers of his native state, which, after dashing and sparkling over their stony beds, lay themselves down between quiet meadows and glide softly to the Sound.

Halleck had a worthy parentage. His father, Israel Halleck, according to Mr. Duyckinck, was a man of extensive read

ing, a tenacious memory, pithy conversation | write verses when scarce out of childhood, and courteous manners. His mother was afterwards become eminent as poets; but of the Eliot family, a descendant of John as a rule, precocity in this department of Eliot, one of the noblest of the New England letters is no sign of genius. In the verses worthies, the translator of the Bible into of Halleck which General Wilson has colthe Indian language, the religious teacher, lected, written in 1809 and 1810 and earlier, friend and protector of the Indians, the I discern but slight traces of his peculiar rigid non-conformist, the charitable pastor genius, and none of the grace and spirit who distributed his salary among his needy which afterwards became so marked. They neighbors, who preached and prayed against are better, it is true, than the juvenile wigs and tobacco, without being able to poems which encumber the later collections triumph over the power of fashion or the of the poetry of Thompson, but they are force of habit, and of whom it is said that not characteristic. Between the time when his sermons were remarkable for their sim- they were written and that in which he proplicity of expression and freedom from the duced the poems which are commonly called false taste of the age. Halleck inherited the Croakers, his poetic faculty ripened his ancestor's spirit of non-conformity. He rapidly, and as remarkably as that of Byron would argue in favor of an established between the publication of his Hours of church among people with whom the disso- Idleness and that of his Childe Harold. ciation of church and state was an article His fancy had been quickened into new of political faith, and astonished his repub- life; he had learned to wield his native lican neighbors by declaring himself a par- language like a master; he had discovered tisan of monarchy. He was not easily di- that he was a wit, as well as a poet; and verted from any course of conduct by def- his verse had acquired that sweetness and erence to public opinion. Mr. Cozzens variety of modulation which afterwards relates that when Jacob Barker had fallen distinguished it. The poems which bear under the public censure, Halleck, then his the signature of Croaker & Co., written by clerk, was told that he ought to leave his him in conjunction with his friend, Joseph service. He answered that he would not Rodman Drake, began in 1819 to appear desert the sinking ship, and that the in the Evening Post, then conducted by time to stand by his friends was when they Mr. Coleman. That gentleman observed were unfortunate. He had a certain per- their merit with surprise, commended sistency of temper which was transmitted, them in his daily sheet, and was gratified I think, from the old Puritan stock. It to learn that the whole town was talking was some fifteen or twenty years after he of them. It was several years after this came to live in New York that he said to that Mr. Coleman said to me, “I was me, "I like to go on with the people curious to see the young men whose witty whom I begin with. I have the same verses, published in my journal, made so boarding-house now that I had when I first much noise, and desired an interview with came to town; my clothes are made by the them. They came before me and I was same tailor, and I employ the same shoe- greatly struck by their appearance. Drake maker." looked the poet; you saw the stamp of genius in every feature. Halleck had the aspect of a satirist.”

I do not find that Halleck began to write verses prematurely. Poetry, with most men, is one of the sins of their youth, and a great deal of it is written before the authors can be justly said to have reached years of discretion. With the greatest number it runs its course and passes off like the measles or the chicken-pox; with a few it takes the chronic form and lasts a lifetime, and I have known cases of persons attacked by it in old age. A very small number who begin, like Milton, Cowley and Pope to

There is a certain manner common to both authors in these poems. They both wrote with playfulness and gayety, and although with the freedom of men who never expect to be known, yet without malignity; but it seems to me that Halleck drove home his jests with the sharpest percussion, and there are some flashes of that fire which blazed out on his Marco Bozzaris.

The poem entitled Fanny was published