Et lene consilium imbiberes meum, Ni fuerim nimium molesta!' — C. M." - pp. 114, 115. But we cannot keep long away from our venerable friend Gammer Gurton. Samuel Butler, the late learned bishop of Litchfield, has selected from that immortal lady's more than epic strains, the lines commemorating the exploits of that man so "wondrous wise," who performed operations upon his own eyes, surpassing all that is now doing by the surgeons to cure the strabismus ; and has rendered them into Greek Iambic trimeters, in a style worthy of his critical fame. THE MAN OF THESSALY. "THERE was a man of Thessaly, 66 GAMMER GURTON. CC VIR THESSALICUS. « Εξ οὐ τυχόντων Θετταλός τις ἦν ἀνήρ, S. B." Κἀκ τοῦδ ̓ ἐγένετ ̓ ἐξαὖθις ἐκ τυφλοῦ βλέπων. We are sorry to be informed, at this late day, that our venerable friend, whose honesty has been supposed beyond the reach of suspicion, had her little failings after all. It seems, from the learned researches of Edward Craven Hawtrey, S. T. P., and Head Master of Eton School, that the much admired strain, beginning 'Sing a song of sixpence," is a plagiarism, from a fragment of Athenæus, lately discovered. Now that the truth is known, - for plagiarism like murder will out, we may as well confess, that we always had a lurking suspicion, that all was not right about the old lady and this piece. It has a certain air of antique simplicity, and a certain indescribable something, which we always thought went a little beyond the genius even of Gammer Gurton. The original is in Trochaic Tetrameter Catalectic, that ever the sly old soul should have dabbled in such musty learning! We give the poem in both forms, and then drop the veil of charity over her failings for ever. "SING a song of sixpence, "The King was in the parlour And carried off her nose. 66 GAMMER GURTON. περὶ δὲ τῶν κοσσύφων, ὡς ἐκ κριβάνων τοῖς δειπνοῦσι παρατεθέντα ᾄδουσι, περὶ δὲ τῶν στρουθίων, ὡς τῶν παιδισκῶν τὰς ῥῖνας καθιπτάμενα ἅρπαζει, τῶν κωμικῶν τις οὕτως γράφει· Αισμα νῦν τετρωβολαῖον, ᾄδετ', ἄνδρες δημόται, Εζετ' ἀναβάδην τυράννη γ'· ἄρτον ἥδε καὶ μέλι - - pp. 176, 177. There is a beautiful Latin version of the Antistrophic choral ode in Alcestis, beginning 'Eyà, naì dià Móvous, by Mr. Drury the editor, and an excellent one of the "Burial of Sir John Moore," by James Hildyard, A. M., Fellow of Christ College, which we should be glad to transfer to these pages, but have not room for them. The last part of the volume is in a more serious strain, consisting mainly of religious poems and prayers, all translated with great beauty. But we must take leave of this agreeable collection of the gayeties and gravities of our learned brethren across the water. When will such a volume appear from an American University? ART. II. 1. Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians. By GEORGE CATLIN. Written during Eight Years' Travel amongst the Wildest Tribes of Indians in North America in 1832, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, and '39. In 2 vols., 8vo., with 400 Illustrations, carefully engraved from his Original Paintings. pp. 264, 266. New York: Wiley & Putnam. 2. American Antiquities and Researches into the Origin and History of the Red Race. By ALEXANDER W. BRADFORD. New York: Dayton & Saxton. Boston: Saxton & Pierce. 8vo. pp. 435. MR. CATLIN, whose work lies before us, went to the western country, some eight or ten years ago, as a portrait and landscape painter, with an ardent enthusiasm for the Indian character, and a keen eye for the beautiful and the picturesque. A native of the sylvan valley of the Wyoming, his early impressions appear to have been tinctured with tales of the thrilling and tragic scenes of which that portion of Pennsylvania became so celebrated a theatre, during the American Revolution. But these, instead of creating preju dices in his mind against the race, who were the principal actors in these deeds of cruelty, would appear to have imparted an additional interest to their subsequent fate and for tunes. An early bias for his art was smothered by parental preference for the legal profession, in the study and practice of which some five or six years were thrown away, when he resumed his pencil in the city which gave West to the art; and he soon found his preference fixed on the attractive and novel branch of it, which is furnished by the portraiture and scenery of Indian life. To pursue this with effect, he soon discovered that it would be necessary to leave the cities of the Atlantic coast, and proceed into the great area of the Mississippi valley, immense portions of which are still in the occupancy of the Indian tribes. To enter this area, was, at once, to disclose the immensity, the perpetual expansion to which the circle of civilization is subject, and the great number of fierce, warlike, and barbaric tribes, who still flourish and reign over the vast prairies of the upper Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Arkansas. On reaching St. Louis, near the junction of the Mississippi and Missouri, he found himself only on the threshold of his field, and in his search for "the West" felt much like the poet, in making a similar inquiry ; "Ask where 's the North? at York 't is on the Tweed, In Scotland at the Orcades; and there, At Greenland, Zembla, and the Lord knows where." Mr. Catlin proceeded up the Missouri in a steamboat to the mouth of the Yellowstone, a computed distance of two thousand miles. He then returned to St. Louis, and, the next season, got under convoy of the exploratory detachment of United States Dragoons, who were sent to open an intercourse with, and demand reparation for some depredations committed by, remote tribes. This detachment (whose march is memorable for the death, by fever, of General H. Leavenworth, of the United States Army) set out from Fort Gibson, and laying its course in a southwest direction across the Arkansas, penetrated to the Camanche, Kiowa, and Pawnee Pict villages, near to the base of the Rocky Mountains, a point only reached before by adventurous hunters and " trappers," or the trading caravans to Santa Fe. He afterwards ascended the Mississippi from St. Louis to St. Anthony's Falls in a steamboat, descended it in a birchbark canoe to his starting-point, visited the seacoast of Florida, and, with the return of another season, revisited St. Peter's, by the way of the Lakes, and from this point penetrated to the Coteau des Praries, — a vast elevation, without forest, whose rocky foundations give limits and direction to the sweeping current of the Missouri. There he found and examined the Red Pipe-Stone quarry, so celebrated in the Indian lore of the West; and, in the glazed or vitreous surface of the precipitous quartzy rock overlying it, he verifies, without being aware of it, Captain Carver's story of the "Shining Mountains," which, like too many of this hardy old explorer's descriptions, have been long set down as fabulous. Mr. Catlin also visited the chief points accessible to steamboats on the upper Lakes, passed across the territory of Wisconsin from Green Bay, and saw some other portions of the country, whose minuter features it is no part of our design to specify. The better part of eight years, with intervals of repose, was covered by these long, hazardous, and fatiguing journeys. Wherever he went he carried his easel, his portfolio, and his paint pots, and, for the time being, he erected his studio in the most wild and remote of the Indian hamlets. But above all, he carried his warm feelings of admiration for the nobler traits of the red race, his accurate observation of their personal features, their costume, and wild sports, and his pictorial skill in transferring those features to the canvass. His pencil seems to have had the effect of Goldsmith's flute upon those on whose hospitality he threw himself. It made him everywhere an agreeable visitor, and conciliated friendship. He possessed still another trait, which is also a characteristic feature of his work, namely, an eye for the often magnificent and novel scenery, which came before him. He evinced a high degree of perseverance in the collection and preservation of the native costumes, implements, and manufactures, regardless of cost; and he added to all, a racy, straight-forward, off-hand mode of describing them. His, portraits of chiefs, and other persons, are deemed to be faithful representations of their originals, and have merited the approbation of numerous and respectable individuals in the West, - No. 115. VOL. LIV. 37 |