not a prominent speaker, not less serviceable to his friends by his knowledge of men and skilful marsballing of their forces.

·

to remark derisively, that he could put the friends Let of the constitution in a way of discussing it one of them make objections, and another answer "On the other side, as has been intimated, there them.' And when they sometimes felt reluctant was much less debate. Yet able men were not to reject an instrument of union, with which they wanting there, sagacious in discerning distant evils, seemed unable or unwilling openly to find fault, it and honest and determined in their resistance. is difficult to decide of some of the objections that There was David Caldwell, a Presbyterian divine were made, whether they proceeded from an affecfrom Guilford, shrewd, persevering, and impracti- ted simplicity or a real ignorance. Many of them cable, as a man of the closet and of theories might well be; Timothy Bloodworth, of New Hanover, resolute almost to fierceness, and almost radical in his democracy; Samuel Spencer, of Anson, cancid, temperate, and by far superior to his associate in discussion; and Willie Jones, of Halifax, be-quently, or at such length, as many others; but the yond comparison the most adroit tactician in the convention, and the most influential politician in the state, and who directed the movements of his party with no less skill than success.

were doubtless designed merely to annoy and occupy their opponents. If there was craft on one side, there was irritation on the other, and finally bitterness on both.

"Mr. Davie did not address the convention so fre

effects of his eloquence were evidently much dreaded by the other side of the house. He came among I them with a high reputation for forensic skill. expect,' said Mr. Porter, 'that very learned ar"In this body Colonel Davie found ample scope guments and powerful oratory will be displayed on for the exercise of his abilities. He was put on this occasion. I expect that the great cannon from the committee of rules and orders, and that of elec- Halifax, (Mr. Davie,) will discharge fireballs among tions and privileges, the only ones the convention us.' Mr. Davie seems, however, to have felt that formed. After a resolution to take the question they had met for graver purposes than the indulwithout debate had been refused, and the discus- gence of a desire to shine, and to have restrained sion of the constitution was fairly opened, the first the natural sallies of his eloquence to an earnest movement of the opposition was made through Mr. and business-like attempt to secure the great interCaldwell, who demanded to know how the Federal est then at hazard. His own feelings, too, were Convention had dared to style themselves, We irritated by the gloomy silence' of his adversathe people.' The implication, which was design-ries; and his forebodings of defeat in a cause which ed to be the effective part of the query, was that he had so much at heart were enough to repress all the convention had exceeded their powers, and, promptings of vanity. though irrelevant to the merits of the system, was Mr. Davie, as one of the framers of the constian attack by no means to be despised. It was also tution, was of course expected to present and vina grave charge on the members of that assembly, dicate the views they entertained, and the reasons which Mr. Davie, as one of them, was bound to which induced them to offer to the country the sysrepel. This he did in a speech of great clearness tem which was now to be discussed, while others, and precision, as well as force, setting forth the not members of that body, applied to it the general Events which led to the proposed confederation of rules of interpretation, and declared what would the States, the defects of the old system, and the be the operation of its principles. His interest in necessary action of the delegates under the au- the adoption of the constitution would not allow thority which had been given them. It was a dis-him to leave any method of persuasion untried; and eussion in outline of the whole subject before them, while he appealed with little success to the spirit and a complete vindication of those who had fram- of concession, which finally ruled in the counsels ed the constitution. With the usual policy, more of the Federal Convention, he offered to the peomanly perhaps than discreet, of those with whom ple of his own state explanations of that instrument, he acted, he forebore to take any formal notice of and arguments in its defence, which were worthy of the implication, which his argument effectually a longer experience, and indicated a high degree crushed. of political foresight.

"No sooner had he taken his seat than the rever- "It is observable that much weight was given, in end objector, clinging to the advantage which an both the general and state conventions, to consideungenerous insinuation gave his party, repeated rations touching the future form of government that yet more loudly, I wish to know, why the gentle-were purely local or temporary, the mere accidents men who were delegated by the States styled them- of the scheme, and that the greater part of those selves, We the people ?" He was answered di- who decided this great question were slightly inrectly, more than once, and still continued his de- fluenced by what time has shown to be its true mand, till his own friends, ashamed to hear so often merits. The convention of North Carolina was what themselves had so often said, put him down. certainly no exception. The want of theoretical "The policy of Jones and of the party on his side perfectness in it determined the judgment of some; was to avoid debate, and often, when the sections and the sense of a partial evil, inagnified by jealwere read, which had been most loudly complained ous fears, swayed the action of many more. of through the State, they would pass them with- advocates of its adoption, as they had the debate out remark, as if fearing to have the objections, mainly to themselves, had also the best of the arwhich had answered their purpose out of doors, gument. The other side, with few exceptions, ofrefuted on the floor of the house. This course fered only insinuations and surmises, and taunting compelled the advocates of the convention to suffer questions, and silence. Yet reserve and doubt outit to be rejected without defence, or to take the weighed logic and eloquence, and when the quesludicrous and provoking attitude of replying to al-tion was finally taken, the friends of the constituleged faults of the system, which yet had not been tion, the Federalists, as they were called, were outobjected to in debate. This induced Jones once numbered by one hundred votes."

The

addressing the American legation at his levees, seemed for the time to forget that Governor Da vie was second in the commission, his attention being more particularly directed to him.'"

Davie, for a series of years, was elected to the went. I could not but remark, that Bonaparte, in popular branch of the state legislature by the voters of Halifax, where he resided. In that body he stood without a rival, and his eloquence there, upon all questions of moment, is said to have been irresistible. Many traces of his wisdom as a legislator Soon after his return from France, he retired are to be seen in the statute book, the most prominent from public life, and in 1805, removed to his esof which is the act drawn up by him, for the estate in the Waxhaw Settlement, South Carolina, tablishment of the University. Strange to say, this where he spent the remainder of his days. act was strenously, nay, almost bitterly opposed, by many of the members, and it required the fullest exertion of all his “tact, logic, satire and eloquence," to pass it through. Almost a zealot in the cause of education, and thinking it the duty of all true patriots to promote the dissemination of knowledge among the people, it is no wonder that he put forth his most splendid efforts here. "I was present in the house of commons," says Judge Murphy, "when Davie addressed that body, upon the bill granting a loan of money to the trustees, for erecting the buildings of the University and though more than thirty years have since elapsed, I have the most vivid recollections of the greatness of his manner and the powers of his eloquence, upon that occasion."

:

"In the peaceful duties and enjoyments of this exercise of an elegant hospitality, in which none retirement," says the writer, "varied only by the indulged more generously, and by occasional visits to the scenes of his former activity, when crowds of friends and admirers were always ready to greet his coming, he passed his later years. And when dier, and the composure which comes from the rethe end came, he met it with the firmness of a solcollection of a life filled with brave, honorable, and useful actions. He died in December, 1820. in the sixty-fifth year of his age. A remembrance of more than ordinary affection is retained of him by his wise devotion to the public service, will long those who knew him, and the many monuments of endear his memory to the State, whose interests and honor he guarded so faithfully and so well."

Davie was appointed by President Adams, BriThus ended the career of Davie, a man, who, gadier-General of the provisional army, which Con-possessing many remarkable qualities, and eminent gress, in 1798, ordered to be levied in view of the for his devotion to the cause of virtue, liberty and likelihood of a war with France. Soon after, he learning, did not deserve to be neglected so long. was elected Governor of North Carolina, by the This neglect is now compensated, however, by the legislature, but resigned this office before the ex-volume before us, where his various exploits are piration of the term, having been appointed by graphically recorded, and the traits of his characMr. Adams, minister plenipotentiary and envoy ex- ter lucidly unfolded, in a style, simple, chaste, clastraordinary to France, in conjunction with Mr. sic, and oft-times powerful. All the shifung Murray and Chief Justice Ellsworth. His com-scenes of an eventful life, are vividly presented to mission was issued June 1st, 1799. It is unneces-the imagination, insomuch that we cannot help sary to speak here of the questions which were to thinking, were we master of the pencil, we could be decided by these commissioners, as they are easily commit them to the canvass. The hero moves matters of general history. Neither is it impor- through them, with the utmost ease and dignity, tant to detail their proceedings, after they met those passing naturally from one to the other, and show. appointed to treat with them. Suffice it to say, ing the greatness of his character in all, until at that after many difficulties, articles were finally length when he takes his final departure, we feel agreed on, and mutually signed, under the title of as if we were separated from one with whom we a convention," on the 30th of September, 1800. This event was celebrated with great eclat at Morfontaine, the residence of Joseph Bonaparte, one of the commissioners, on which occasion the First Consul was present, with a numerous and brilliant

party.

had been intimately associated, and who had excited our warmest admiration and elicited our most ardent friendship.

We have spoken highly of Gov. Davie, but cer tainly there are many more whom North Carolina may boast of, and memoirs of whom would make her own name more illustrious. We may mention Richard Caswell, of whom the elder Adams said, that "in the darkest hours of the Revolution, the whig leaders in Congress looked always with hope and reliance to Caswell," Gov. Thomas Burke, whose history has some touches of romance,—Gov. Samuel Johnston, a strong-minded, inflexible, honest man,-James Iredell, a justice of the U. States Supreme Court, than whom this country has seen few men, more learned in the law, of more com manding eloquence, or more gentleman-like accom

plishments and Cornelius Havnett, "the Samuel Adams of the South." These are a few only of the noble spirits who have adorned her annals;-and when we speak of later times, what State might not be proud to number among her sons, Ravenscroft and Gaston?

Notices of New Works.

THE DIPLOMATIC AND OFFICIAL PAPERS OF DANIEL.
WEBSTER, While Secretary of State. New York:
Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 82 Cliff street. 1848.

-wander where the Muses haunt Clear spring or shady grove or sunny hill,

we shall be among the first to thrust him from the place and to cry out against all such, Procul! O procul este profani ! In our literary jurisdiction alone, therefore, we shall speak of the author of the volume before us.

It has been well remarked that Mr. Webster has done what no poet-no professional writer in this country as yet has been able to do: he has identified himself with localities, consecrated as the places where great events have transpired. No educated man can stand on that rock, which first kissed the foot of the tempest-tossed Pilgrim, filled as his mind must be with the story of their trials, their heroism and their extraordinary character, without connecting the genius of the Puritan's son with all the deeds of the Puritan fathers; nor can he look upon that simple shaft, which rises over the field of Bunker Hill, and revert to the struggle which it commemorates, without recalling, amid the din of contending hosts, the tones of the orator who illustrated its commencement and its comple

tion.

For more than thirty-seven years Daniel Webster has devoted the service of his mind to this Union. For a lonThe most prominent characteristic of Mr. Webster's style ger period of time, in the retirement of private life, have is the American feeling which pervades it. He is indeed his studies been the genius,-the institutions,-the des-heart and mind wholly American. We do not use this word tiny of our country. His has not been the career of in the signification given to it by those, who think

There is no world without Verona's walls,

who would make roughness, jealousy, pride of opinion the principal traits of the American character. Mr. Webster, fortunately for our country-for our race, is not such an Atmerican as this. Like Halleck's Yankee,

He loves the land because it is his own,
And scorns to give aught other reason why,

but he car, none the less on this account, admire the great
country, which, with all its faults, has given us the Habeas
Corpus, the Trial by Jury, Equal Laws and free expres
sion of Opinion. And in doing this, Mr. Webster does no
wrong to his birth-place. He can revere talent wherever
it may be found. He can scorn no good thing, no matter
what clime may have produced it. It is in this broad com-
prehensive sense that Mr. Webster is altogether American.

the mere politician, who, like the little ephemera on the banks of the river Hypanis, comes to life in the morning, fulfils all the ends of its creation, and dies before night. Far otherwise. He sprang from the loins of a hero," who through the fire and blood of a seven years' revolutionary war, shrunk from no danger. no toil, no sacrifice to serve his country,"—who impressed on the minds of his children a deep sense of the invaluable blessings of our form of govern. ment, and who dying left them the injunction, (their only heritage besides his good name and his more than Roinan-his American virtues,) that they should do all that in them lay to perpetuate the institutions which he had aided in securing. How well Daniel Webster has acted in accordance with that injunction let history record. We propose not, however, to enter upon a sketch of his eventful life. We shall not revert to 1782 to see the New Hampshire boy lying in a rude hut "amid the snow-drifts of that State at a period so early,as that when the smoke first rose from its rude chimney and curled Over the frozen hills, there was no similar evidence of a Another marked feature of Mr. Webster's style, as diswhite man's habitation between it and the settlements on played in his Diplomatic papers, is its massive solidity. the rivers of Canada." We shall not revive the reminis- And let it be observed that this quality in no degree decences of his collegiate course, nor recur to the studious tracts from its rhetorical beauty. No writer with whom we Lours then given up to law and literature, which have are acquainted presents so rare a combination of strength since repaid with so good an interest the assiduous labor and elegance. In the great intellect of Mr. Calhoun we bestowed upon them. We shall not go with him to the bar see the most astonishing power of condensation. But in and hear his respectable master divine the omens of his his disdain of the mere fripperies of ornament, he becomes first appearance with so just a divination. Thanks to a rigid, (to use the simile of the poet,) the shaft is seen liftkind Heaven, it is not our province to view the course of ing its head towards heaven, but no leaves of the acanthus Daniel Webster historically,-to point out to the ingenuous cluster around the capital. In what Mr. Webster writes, we youth of America, animated by noble ambition, the virtues not only feel the force of his logic, but we are charmed by the that adorn and the faults that disfigure his character. These elegance of his magnificent periods. While ranking with are the immunities which the grave alone confers. Far, the statesmen of past ages, with the Walpoles and Pitts, very far distant be the day when any man can claim them. as "the pilot that weathered the storm," he must be classStill less do we propose to trace his political career, bril-ed with Bacon and Burke as possessing a perfect mastery liant and successful as it has been. It is no part of our bu over the English language. siness to introduce party topics, or to discuss party mea- We trust the present volume will find a large circulation sures, within the pages of the Messenger. We shall say and will be carefully studied. Its contents are of the nothing, therefore, of his services in the Senate and the highest possible interest-the case of McLeod, the afCabinet, or of the Treaty of Washington, that treaty, which | affair of the Creole, the Right of Search, the great bounda "did something for the suppression of crime, for the true ry difficulty, all questions once threatening disastrous exposition of the principles of public law and security of war, which the genius of Mr. Webster helped to avert. The commerce on the ocean and for the peace of the world." very handsome style in which the Harpers have brought Within the sacred precincts of Literature, the spirit of out the work will commend it to popular favor. It is embelpartizan warfare dares not enter. And when any unlicens-lished with a well-engraved portrait of the great statesman. ed intruder, with strife upon his lips, shall Messrs Drinker & Morris have it for sale.

A FUNERAL ORATION, Occasioned by the Death of Thomas Cole, Delivered before the National Academy of Design, New York, May 4, 1848. By WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. New York: D. Appleton & Company.

A chaplet of roses cast upon the grave of genius. In the death of Thomas Cole, American Art has indeed sustained a grievous loss. Not long has it been since the Academy of Design were called upon to mourn the departure of one whose brush has transferred to the canvass the features of the greatest men of our age. A little while, and the great landscape painter follows his brother artist to the spirit-land. But although their mortal remains have been consigned to the tomb, the fame of Inman and Cole shall not soon pass away.

unweakened by the disease which brought low his frame, amidst the hitter anguish of the loved ones who stood around him, when the hour of its divorce from the material organs had come, calmly retired behind the veil which hides es from the world of disembodied spirits."

HAROLD; The Last of the Saxon Kings. By SIR E.
BULWER LYTTON. New York: Harper & Brothers.

1848.

A large space in our magazine has been recently devoted to a consideration of the corrupt tendencies of the LaMost proper was it that Bryant should be the eulogist of cretia of Bulwer. We have shown that this gifted writer, Cole. Though their vocations were different, the poet in with all his rare and brilliant powers, in the composition of his closet and the painter at his easel were kindred in feel that work, has wandered from the legitimate paths of fictiing and sentiment. They felt the divinity of a kindred in- tious narrative. We have shown that, in excluding from spiration; and when the pen and the pencil were laid aside us all the lovelier and brighter images of humanity, and they went forth to look upon nature with the same reverent dwelling only upon crimes the most revolting in the dark eye. Thus Cole has painted poems and Bryant has writ-catalogue of guilt, he has pandered to a morbid excitemeat ten landscapes. It has been the province of both to soothe and fallen upon the vulgar error of mistaking the horrible and to instruct by their efforts,-to carry us to the Beauti- for the sublime. Terror as a means of moral influence has ful Gate and open to our view prospects of surpassing long since been discarded by the philosopher and the draloveliness, and to endow us with an ennobling sense of matist, and the parricide of Edipus and the murder of the having been wrapt in the contemplation of higher and bet-infant princes in the Tower interest us only as they are ter objects. We have seen one of Cole's pictures repre-associated with the genius of Sophocles and of Shakspere. senting an autumnal sunset,-in which the depth of atmos phere and glow of tint reminded us of those fine lines "To a Waterfowl,"

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,

Thy figure floats along.

Of Cole's larger works, the "Voyage of Life" is perhaps the most remarkable. It consists of a series of four pictures, which are now in the gallery of the Art Union of New York City, and will be included in the lottery of prizes in the distribution in December next. Bryant thus describes these pictures;

We rejoice to see, in the present work, an evidence that Bulwer has left the details of murder for a better theme and a loftier tragedy. The story of the Norman Conques: is one worthy indeed of his great dramatic power, his striking delineations of character and the charm of his echanting diction. As he has treated it, the age with all its incidents seems brought nearer to our view, the grotesque figures, unlike any created thing, that dance about with such comical grimaces in the Bayeux Tapestry, become at once life-like and familiar. Nay, more, we incline to the opinion, that dramatically considered, Harold is the best novel Bulwer has ever written. The Norman Duke and the Saxon King more closely resemble men, than any ef the frigid and fastidious dandies of his former productions.

With regard to the style of Harold, it may be objected by some that Bulwer has been too prodigal in the use of figurative language. But it should be recollected that the work is conceived in the spirit of the past. In the library of his friend, Mr. D'Eyncourt, (to which, in the Detication, he acknowledges himself greatly indebted,) the author became as it were, absorbed in the literature of the Saxons. He visited, in imagination at least, their rude tem

"The conception of the series is a perfect poem. The child, under the care of its guardian angel, in a boat heaped with buds and flowers, floating down a stream which issues from the shadowy cavern of the past and flows between banks bright with flowers and the beams of the rising sun; the youth with hope in his gesture and aspect, taking command of the helm, while his winged guardian watches him anxiously from the shore; the mature man, hurried on-ples and communed with the Scald, as beneath the dark firward by the perilous rapids and eddies of the river; the trees he struck the harp to the songs of Valhalla. The aged navigator, who has reached, in his frail and now idle grim Vikings in their pirate-ships passed before his vision bark, the mouth of the stream, and is just entering the great and he heard the clang of the hoofs of Odin's frighted steed. ocean which lies before him in mysterious shadow, set be- It is natural enough, therefore, that his style should confore us the different stages of human life under images of form to the spirit and catch the imagery of that old mawhich every beholder admits the beauty and deep signifi-strelsy of the North, in which the grave is called the Green cance. The second of this series, with the rich luxuriance Gate of Heaven and the sword the Brother of the Lightof its foreground, its pleasant declivities in the distance, ning. We say this is natural, and we like the novel all and its gorgeous but shadowy structures in the piled clouds the better for it. is one of the most popular of Cole's compositions." We could profitably make larger extracts from this Ora-are compelled to aver, that, as a story, it is a very wea tion, but have only room for the touching reflection with which it closes;

After what we have said in commendation of Harold, we

risome affair. It is just the right sort of book for afterdinner reading, to put one very composedly to sleep. Its "It is when I contemplate the death of such a man as Cole entire want of continuing interest is due perhaps to the under such circumstances as attended his, that I feel most intimate knowledge, all, who have read English history, certain of the spirit's immortality. In his case the painful possess of the incidents of the Saxon Fall. We know ev problem of old age was not presented, in which the mind ery thing by anticipation. From the first chapter we are sometimes seems to expire before the body and often to certain that Harold must yield to the Conqueror and as the wither with the same decline. He left us in the mid-plot is developed, we find we have read of the circumstances strength of his intellect, and his great soul, unharmed and before. A romance of the same people and period, purely

imaginative in design, would doubtless be a far more agree- Education; at the same time, they have steadily endeavor. able work.

Professor of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Chil- this connection, puts forth these just and noble sentiments:

In these names, the public have a sufficient assurance of gave his impressive sanction to this truth, by devoting the the thorough system of medical study pursued in the insti-thor of the Declaration of Independence, after a long life evening of his days to the cause of education; and the auWe might go on to speak of its prospects for the of illustrious services, preferred no higher claim to the approaching session, but we prefer to quote in this behalf the language of the circular:

"Professor WYMAN having been appointed to the Chair of Comparative Anatomy in Harvard University, resigned at the close of the last session, the Chair of Anatomy and Physiology, which for a series of years he had filled with We feel an abiding confidence that considerations such great ability in this Institution. The friends of the Insti- as these will not be without their proper effect, in increastution deem it a subject of congratulation that the vacancying the influence and usefulness of our home institution.

EULOGY ON JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, Delivered May 11th, 1848. At the School-House of the Sixth Ward. Pittsburgh. By H. M. Brackenridge. Pittsburgh: Johnston and Stockton. 1848.

One of the most graceful and finished addresses which the death of Mr. Adams has called forth. It embodies a very succinct and accurate history of the times in which Mr. Adams lived and the author's reflections are, for the