The Union, which was lately the organ of the legitimist party, exhorts to union, and counsels the public to avoid alike blind confidence and groundless fear. It says:

national discount bank, with a capital of 20,000-ments, and of the calm which everywhere prevails, 000fr.; the third, which raises the interest upon the have thrown the court of Prussia into great agitadeposits in the saving's bank from 4 to 5 per cent. tion. The enthusiasm of the population of Berlin Just are the motives on which this last decree are did not permit Frederick William to change his founded, and laudable are the intentions of the two disquietudes into menaces. He comprehended that, others, which associate, on equal terms, the state, and has resigned his mind to leave us undisturbed. the towns, and the subscribers. Our only fear is The liberal opposition, become more powerful and that the capital of 20,000,000fr., at which the cap- more determined, calls for new concessions, and ital of the Paris discount bank is fixed, will prove thus occupied at home, it is impossible for the King but a drop of water in the ocean of commerce and of Prussia to think of renewing the wild attempt manufacture, in that vast ocean which may carry of 1792. Were he even inclined, he would not be everything away. able probably this time to induce his people to march excite his anger; but that question is not a popular The affair of Neuchatel could alone against us. one in Prussia. Public opinion has already had occasion to declare itself on that point; it is unwilling that the king should engage the whole nation in the defence of an interest, of but little importance more would it disapprove at present of the conduct of Frederick William in commencing a war, destined certainly to become general. Thus, whatever may be the regrets, the fears, and the anger of the Prussian court, it is almost without arms against us: it must be satisfied to curse France in secret, without attacking us. Austria on her part is too much occupied with Italy to think of us. alone remains, but reduced to her proper strength, separated from us by Poland and Germany, in want of money, she will probably postpone her plans, if she entertains any hostile ones. We continue, consequently, to think that none of these powers will be tempted to interfere in our affairs. They are aware, besides, how France is accustomed to receive troublesome visitors of that kind, and the perfect security which prevails here will be to them a sign of the little disquietude which their plans

Russia

We have to fly from two dangers, a blind secu-in itself, and altogether personal to himself; much rity, an unreasonable fear. Some amuse themselves by exaggerating fear, others take pleasure in affecting security; let us maintain a medium of reason and justice between these two extremes. It is evident that France is in a crisis of revolution which imprudence or temerity would render fatal; but we shall be able to get out of it by firinness and by wisdom. After all, it is only a small number who take pleasure in confusion; the immense majority of the nation desires liberty with order; and is it given to some men to beat down the will of all? There are some politicians who would require fear to become contagious, because, from a state of universal alarm, they could create circumstances propitious to their ambition. These politicians are the able men of yesterday, who have pushed their fine régime into an abyss, and who think that the world continues to believe in their genius. No! their counsels of fear will not be listened to; France has the instinct of her perils, but she is also conscious of her strength. Others would desire the security to be profound, that is to say, without foresight and senseless. That would be the prelude to a sort of fatalism, in which society might perish. Let us avoid these two contrary dangers. We point them out to our friends, we point them out to the men of the provisional government. All ought fully to study the situation of France. Let them keep from those who frighten them-let them keep from those who lull them into security. It is by courage, by wisdom, by a reasonable, calm, and sustained confidence, that they may overcome difficulties, and thwart the hideous hopes which would attach to anarchy.

9th March, two o'clock.

THE leading articles of the Paris journals of this day are not of a very interesting character taken generally, but some of the extracts are worth giving. We begin with the National on the probable position of France as regards foreign pow

ers :

cause.

We learn from Toulouse that a band of from 1,500 to 2,000 malefactors, all armed, had descended from la Barousse, (Hautes-Pyrénées,) and pillaged and devastated the villages in the arrondissement of Saint Gaudens. M. Joly, the commissary of the provisional government at Toulouse, sent a commissary to Saint Gaudens, who ascertained that new devastations had taken place. The brigands had occupied the communes of Estenos, Bagiry, Bertren, and Luscan, and had entered houses by force, completely pillaging and sacking them. The house of M. de Goulard, an ex-deputy of the Hautes-Pyrénées, was sacked, the most valuable furniture taken away, and a sum of 3,000fr. extorted from a domestic. In some villages several landowners had been seized by the brigands, and obliged to pay ransom for their release. Strong detachments of troops and national guards had been sent against them. conflict took place between them and a detachment of the national guard, in which the former had four men killed and several wounded, and were eventually driven to the mountains. Twenty-five of them were captured; the national guard sustained no loss.

A

Our previsions relative to the foreign powers appear likely to be confirmed. We learn by the English journals that the Prussian ambassador at London has declared to Lord Palmerston that his government would remain a neutral, if not indifferThe judicial authorities of Toulouse ent, spectator of the revolution which has been immediately ordered an investigation to be comaccomplished in France. Information which we menced. The inhabitants of different places had have received from a person who arrived yesterday from Berlin authorizes to believe that in fact peace taken arms to resist attacks which they expected will not be troubled in that quarter. The news of these malefactors would venture to make on various the events at Paris, of the adhesions of the depart-towns.

13. Foreign Correspondence-French Revolution,

PROSPECTUS. This work is conducted in the spirit of Littell's Museum of Foreign Literature, (which was favorably received by the public for twenty years,) but as it is twice as large, and appears so often, we not only give spirit and freshness to it by many things which were excluded by a month's delay, but while thus extending our scope and gathering a greater and more attractive variety, are able so to increase the solid and substantial part of our literary, historical, and political harvest, as fully to satisfy the wants of the American reader.

The elaborate and stately Essays of the Edinburgh, Quarterly, and other Reviews; and Blackwood's noble criticisms on Poetry, his keen political Commentaries, highly wrought Tales, and vivid descriptions of rural and mountain Scenery; and the contributions to Literature, History, and Common Life, by the sagacious Spectator, the sparkling Examiner, the judicious Athenæum, the busy and industrious Literary Gazette, the sensible and comprehensive Britannia, the sober and respectable Christian Observer; these are intermixed with the Military and Naval reminiscences of the United Service, and with the best articles of the Dublin University, New Monthly, Fraser's, Tail's, Ainsworth's, Hood's, and Sporting Magazines, and of Chambers' admirable Journal. We do not consider it beneath our dignity to borrow wit and wisdom from Punch; and, when we think it good enough, make use of the thunder of The Times. We shall increase our variety by importations from the continent of Europe, and from the new growth of the British colonies.

The steamship has brought Europe, Asia, and Africa, into our neighborhood; and will greatly multiply our connections, as Merchants, Travellers, and Politicians, with all parts of the world; so that much more than ever it

now becomes every intelligent American to be informed of the condition and changes of foreign countries. And this not only because of their nearer connection with ourselves, but because the nations seem to be hastening, through a rapid process of change, to some new state of things, which the merely political prophet cannot compute or foresee.

Geographical Discoveries, the progress of Colonization, (which is extending over the whole world,) and Voyages and Travels, will be favorite matter for our selections; and, in general, we shal systematically and very ully acquaint our readers with the great department of Foreiga affairs, without entirely neglecting our own.

While we aspire to make the Living Age desirable tc all who wish to keep themselves informed of the rapia progress of the movement-to Statesmen, Divines, Lawyers, and Physicians-to men of business and men of leisure-it is still a stronger object to make it attractive and useful to their Wives and Children. We believe tha we can thus do some good in our day and generation; and hope to make the wor indispensable in every well-informed family. We say indispensable, because in this day of cheap literature it is not possible to guard against the influx of what is bad in taste and vicious in morals, in any other way than by furnishing a sufficient supply of a healthy character. The mental and moral appetite must be gratified.

We hope that, by "winnowing the wheat from the chaff" by providing abundantly for the imagination, and by a large collection of Biography, Voyages and Travels, History, and more solid matter, we may produce a work which shall be popular, while at the same time it wil aspire to raise the standard of public taste.

Agencies. We are desirous of making arrangements, in all parts of North America, for increasing the circulation of this work-and for doing this a liberal commissio will be allowed to gentlemen who will interest themselve in the business. And we will gladly correspond on this subject with any agent who will send us undoubted refer

ences.

Postage. When sent with the cover on, the Living Age consists of three sheets, and is rated as a pamphlet, at 44 cents. But when sent without the cover, it comes within the definition of a newspaper given in the law, and cannot legally be charged with more than newspaper postage, (1 cts.) We add the definition alluded to:

A newspaper is "any printed publication, issued in numbers, consisting of not more than two sheets, and published at short, stated intervals of not more than one month, conveying intelligence of passing events."

Monthly parts.--For such as prefer it in that form, the Living Age is put up in monthly parts, containing four or five weekly numbers. In this shape it shows to great advantage in comparison with other works, containing in each part double the matter of any of the quarterlies. But we recommend the weekly numbers, as fresher and fuller of life. Postage on the monthly parts is about 14 cents. The volumes are published quarterly, each volume containing as much matter as a quarterly review gives in eighteen months.

WASHINGTON, 27 DEC., 1845.

Or all the Periodical Journals devoted to literature and science which abound in Europe and in this country, this has appeared to me to be the most useful. It contains indeed the exposition only of the current literature of the English language, but this by its immense extent and comprehension includes a portraiture of the human mind in the utmost expansion of the present age. J. Q. ADAMS.

LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 205.-15 APRIL, 1848.

press in reference to Emerson, which, at the mention of his name, elicits in each journal a long list of illustrious-obscure, (like a shower of bats from the roof of a barn on the entrance of a light,) in its judgment superior to him—as though a Cockney, insulted by a panegyric on Carlyle, as one of the principal literary ornaments of London, were to produce and parade the name of the subordinate scribblers in the Satirist, Literary Gazette, &c., as the genuine galaxy of her mental firmament. With occasional exceptions, the great general rule

AMERICAN LITERATURE has been long a "mountain in labor," and might have been expected to bring forth either a mouse or a monster. Many will deem the mouse aptly typified by the numerous small poets and essayists who abound in that country; and some will see the monster in the strange, eccentric, and untamable son of the wil-is-how does a name sound afar?-does it return derness before us. It is not, however, in this light that we regard Emerson. We look on him as a genuine man, whose mistakes as well as merits unite in stamping on his character the ineffaceable marks of sincerity, dignified simplicity and independence, as well as of a peculiar and powerful genius.

upon us from the horizon?-what impression does it make upon those who, unprejudiced either for or against the author personally-uncircumscribed by clique or coterie-unaltered by adverse, unsoftened by favorable criticism, have fairly brought his works to the test of their own true-feeling and true-telling souls?

Alike careless and fearless of the judgment which may be passed by any party here or in America, on our opinions, we propose now to extend our former estimate of Emerson—an estimate which has at once been strengthened and modified by the volume of poems he has recently issued.

Elsewhere we have spoken shortly, but sin- This has been eminently the case with Emerson. cerely, of Emerson, and, even at the risk of ego-To him Britain is beginning to requite the justice tism, we must say, that we have been not a little | which America, to her honor, first awarded to Caramused at the treatment which our remarks have lyle. Sincere spirits, in every part of the country, met with from the press of America. So far as who have, many of them, no sympathy with Emwe can judge from periodicals and newspapers, erson's surmised opinions, delight, nevertheless, from Baltimore to Boston, a cry of universal rep- to do him honor, as an earnest, honest, and gifted robation has assailed that article. It has fallen man, caught, indeed, and struggling in a most between two stools-on the one hand, Emerson's alien element, standing almost alone in a medetractors are furious with us, for placing him at chanical country, and teaching spiritual truth to the head of American literature, and so far they those to whom Mammon-not Moses-has become are right—though a most national writer, to Amer- the lawgiver, and Cant-not Christ-the God, but ican literature he does not belong. He is among as yet faithful to the mission with which he deems them, but not of them-a separate state, which no himself to be fraught. Texas negotiation will ever be able to annex to their territory. On the other hand, the school of Transcendentalists contend that we do him less than justice, that our lines are unable to measure or to hold this leviathan; and the opinion of one American author to this effect, deeply humiliated us, till accidentally falling in with her own criticisms, and And first of his little volume of poems. They finding that, among other judgments of the same are not wholes, but extracts, from the volume of kind, she preferred Southey, as a poet, to Shelley, his mind. They are, as he truly calls some of we were not a little comforted, and began to think them, "Woodnotes," as beautiful, changeful, cathat, perhaps, we had as good a right to think and pricious, and unfathomable often, as the song of speak about Emerson as herself. "Verily, a the birds. On hearing such notes we sometimes prophet hath honor, save in his own country, and ask ourselves, "What says that song which has among those of his own house"-an expression lapped us in such delicious reverie, and made us containing much more truth than it at first seems almost forget the music in the sweet thoughts which to imply; for, indeed, the honor given in one's are suggested by it?" Vain the question, for is own country is often as worthless as the neglect not the suggestion of such sweet thoughts saying or abuse; and, notwithstanding the well-known enough, saying all that it was needed to say? It French adage, the vilest and commonest of hero- is the bird that speaks our own soul alone can worship is that of valets and parasites, who meas- furnish the interpretation. So with many of the ure their idol by the standard of his superiority to poems of Emerson. They mean absolutely noththeir own littleness. Hero-worship, however, evening-they are mere nonsense-verses-except to in its worst form, is preferable to that spirit of those who have learned their cipher, and whose jealousy which pervades much of the American heart instinctively dances to their tune. It is of VOL. XVII. 7

CCV.

LIVING AGE.

ten a worldless music-a wild wailing rhythm-a This, indeed, is the great fault of Emerson. sound inexplicable but no more absurd or meaning- He has a penchant for framing brain-webs of all less than the note of the flute or the thrill of the sorts and sizes; and because they hang beautifully mountain bagpipe. Who would, or who, though in the sunbeam, and wave gracefully in the breeze, willing, could translate into common, into all lan- and are to his eye peopled with a fairy race, he guage, that train of thought and emotion, long as deems them worthy of all acceptation, and we verthe life of the soul, and wide as the curve of the ily believe would mount the scaffold, if requisite, sphere, which one inarticulate melody can awaken for the wildest day-dream that ever crossed his in the mind? So some of Emerson's verses float soul among the woods. It was for visions as palus away, listening and lost, on their stream of pable as the sun that the ancient prophets sacrificed sound, and of dim suggestive meaning. Led him- or perilled their lives. It was for facts of which self, as he repeatedly says, as far as the incom- their own eyes and cars were cognizant that the municable," he leads us into the same mystic apostles of the Lamb loved not their lives unto region, and we feel that even in nature there are the death. It was not till this age that "Cloudthings unutterable, which it is not possible for the land," nay, dreamland-dimmer still-have sent tongue of man to utter, and which yet are real as forth their missionary to testify, with rapt look, the earth and the heavens. Coleridge remarks, and face inflamed, and surging eloquence, his be that wherever you find a sentence musically lief in the shadows of his own thoughts. worded, of true rhythm, and melody in the words, there is something deep and good in the meaning Mere no-meaning will not wed with sweet sound. We do not profess to be in the secret of some of the more mystic poems in this volume, such as "Uriel" and the "Sphynx." Nor can we think that there is much room behind the mystic screen-where the poet stands-between his song and the "Oversoul;" but we are ready to apply the old Socratic rule in his behalf-what we understand is excellent, what we do not understand is likely to be excellent too.

too.

Emerson, coming down among men from his mystic altitudes, reminds us irresistibly at times of Rip Van Winkle, with his grey beard and rusty firelock, descending the Catskill mountains, from his sleep of a hundred years. A dim, sleepy atmosphere hangs around him. All things have an unreal appearance. Men seem like trees walking. Of his own identity, he is by no means certain. As in the "Taming of the Shrew," the sun and the moon seem to have interchanged places; and yet, arrived at his native village, he (not exactly like honest Rip) sets up a grocer's shop, and sells, not the mystic draught of the mountain, but often the merest commonplace preparations of an antiquated morality.

In fact, nothing is more astounding about this writer than the mingled originality and triteness of his matter. Now he speaks as if from inmost

A man is often better than his theory, however good and comparatively true that theory be; and this holds especially true of a poet's creed, which, however dry, hard, and abstract, flushes into beauty at his touch, even as the poet's cottage has charms about it, which are concealed from the vulgar eye; and the poet's bride is often by him prodi- communion with the soul of being; Nature seems gally clothed with beauties which niggard nature relieved of a deep burden which had long lain on had denied her. What Mr. Emerson's creed is, her bosom, when some of his oracular words are we honestly say we do not know-that all we can uttered; and now it is as if the throat of the thunconfidently assert concerning it is, that you cannot der had announced the rule of three-as if the old gather it like apples into baskets, nor grind it like silence had been broken, to enunciate some truism corn into provender, nor wind and unwind it like which every schoolboy had long ago recorded in a hank of yarn, nor even collect it like sunlight his copy-book. The "Essay on Compensation," into a focus, and analyze it into prismatic points, for example, proves most triumphantly that vice whether five or seven-nor inclose it within all is its own punishment, and virtue its own reward; the vocabularies of all vernacular tongues; and but, so far as it seeks to show that vice is its own yet that it is not so bad or unholy, but that in his only punishment, and virtue its own only reward, mind, Beauty pitches her tents around its borders, it signally fails. The truth, indeed, is thisand Wonder looks up toward it with rapt eye, and vice does punish, and terribly punish, its victims, Song tunes sweet melodies in its praise, and Love, but who is to punish vice? How is it to be giblike the arms of a child seeking to span a giant betted for the warning of the moral universe? Can oak, seeks to draw into her embrace its immeas- a mere under-current of present punishment be urable vastness. It is such a creed as a man sufficient for this, if there be such a thing as a might form and subscribe in a dream, and when great general commonwealth in the universe at he awoke receive a gentle shrift from wise and gentle confessors. Why criticise or condemn the long nocturnal reverie of a poetic mind, seeking to impose its soft fantasy upon the solid and stupendous universe! We will pass it by in silence, simply retorting the smile with which he regards our sterner theories, as we watch him weaving his network of cobweb around the limbs of the "Sphynx," and deeming that he has her fast.

all? Must it not receive, as the voluntary act of responsible agents, some public and final rebuke? The compensation which it at present obtains is but comparatively a course of private teaching; and does not the fact, that it is on the whole unsuccessful, create a necessity for a more public, strict, and effectual reckoning and instruction?

Thus, what is true in this celebrated essay, is not new; and what is new, is not true. This is

not unfrequently the manner of Mr. Emerson. To an egregious truism he sometimes suddenly appends a paradox as egregious. Like a stolid or a sly servant at the door of a drawing-room, he calls out the names of an old respected guest, and of an intruding and presumptuous charlatan, so quickly and so close together, that they appear to the company to enter as a friendly pair. Of intentional deception on such matters, we cheerfully and at once acquit him; but to his eye, emerging from the strange, dreamy, abnormal regions in which he has dwelt so long, old things appear new, and things new to very crudity appear stamped with the authority, and covered with the hoary grandeur of age.

66

the midst alone! And among those few is Emerson, who is reconciled to remain, chiefly through the hope and the desire of attaining one day more perfect knowledge of nature's silent cipher, and more entire communion with nature's secret soul. Like an enthusiastic boy clasping a Homer's Iliad, and saying, I shall yet be able to understand this," does he seem to say. "Dear are ye to me, Monadnoc and Agiochook, dear ye Alleganies and Niagaras, because I yet hope (or at least those may hope who are to follow me) to unfix your clasps of iron-to unrol your sheets of adamant -to deliver the giant truths that are buried and struggling below you to arrest in human speech the accents of your vague and tumultuous thunder."

Emerson's object of worship has been by many called nature-it is, in reality, man; but by man, As it is, his converse with creation is intimate in his dark ambiguities and inconsistencies, re- and endearing. "Passing over a bare common, pelled, he has turned round and sought to see his amid snow puddles, he almost fears to say how face exhibited in the reflector of nature. It is man glad he is." He seems (particularly in his whom he seeks everywhere in the creation. In "Woodnotes") an inspired tree, his veins full of pursuit of an ideal of man, he runs up the mid-sap instead of blood; and you take up his volume night winds of the forest and questions every star of poems, clad as it is in green, and smell to it as of the sky. To gain some authentic tidings of to a fresh leaf. He is like the shepherd (in Johnman's origin-his nature-past and future history son's fine fable) among the Carpathian rocks, who ―he listens with patient ear to the songs of birds understood the language of the vultures; the sounds -the wail of torrents-as if each smallest surge-how manifold-of the American forest say to of air were whispering, could he but catch the his purged ear what they say to few others, and meaning, about man. He feels that every enigma what even his language is unable fully to express. runs into the great enigma-what is man? and that if he could but unlock his own heart, the key of the universe were found. Perhaps nature, in some benignant or unguarded hour, will tell him where that key was lost! At all events, he will persist in believing that the creation is a vast symbol of man; that every tree and blade of grass is somehow cognate with his nature, and significant of his destiny; and that the remotest stars are only the distant perspective of that picture of which he is the central figure.

Akin to this passionate love of nature is one main error in Emerson's system. Because nature consoles and satisfies him, he would preach it as a healing influence of universal efficacy. He would send man to the fields and woods to learn instruction and get cured of his many wounds. These are the airy academies which he recommends. But, alas! how few can act upon the recommendation! How few entertain a genuine love for nature! Man, through his unhappy wanderings, has been separated, nay, divorced, from what was

It is this which so beautifies nature to his eye-originally his pure and beautiful bride-the unithat gives him more than an organic or associated pleasure in its forms-and renders it to him, not so much an object of love or of admiration, as of ardent study. To many, nature is but the face of a great doll—a well-painted insipidity; to Emerson, it has sculptured on it an unknown but mighty language, which he hopes yet to decipher. Could he but understand its alphabet!-could he but accurately spell out one of its glorious syllables! In the light of that flashing syllable, he would appear to himself discovered, explained; and thus, once for all, would be read the riddle of the world!

This, too, prevents his intercourse with nature from becoming either tedious or melancholy. Nature, to most, is a gloomy companion. Sometimes they are tired of it—more frequently they are terrified. "What does all this mean? what would all this teach us? what would those frowning schoolmasters of mountains have us to do, or learn?" are questions which, though not presented in form, are felt in reality, and which clear, as by a whip of small cords, the desecrated temple of nature. A few, indeed, are still left standing in

verse. No one feels this more than Emerson, or has mourned it in language more plaintive. But why will he persist in prescribing nature as a panacea to those who, by his own showing, are incapable of apprehending its virtue? They are clamoring for bread, and he would give them rocks and ruins. We hold that between man and nature there is a gulf, which nothing but a vital change upon his character, circumstances, and habits, can fill up. Ere applying the medicine you must surely premise the mouth. Man, as a collective being, has little perception of the beauty, and none of the high spiritual meaning, of creation. And as well teach the blind religion through the avenue of the eye as teach average man truth or hope, or faith or purity, through a nature, amid which he dwells an alien and an enemy.

On no subject is there so much pretended, and on none so little real feeling, as in reference to the beauties of nature. We do not allude merely to the trash which professed authors, like even Dickens, indite, when, against the grain, it is their cue to fall into raptures with Niagara, or the