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the door (which shut with a spring latch) on the drinking party within; and then, having by great resolution and strength disarmed and put to flight the sentinels, he presented himself at the window of the room where the rest were enclosed, and threatened with an axe to chop off the head of the first person who offered to escape by that exit. Then, still keeping watch over the now drunken party within the room, he whistled for his black slave, (who, it appeared, had only been sent out of the way to conceal himself with the view of assisting his master's project,) Leita ordered him to prepare the two best horses of the party and bring them to him, and to unsaddle and turn loose all the rest. This being done according to his desire, both master and man mounted, and were soon at a great distance on the road across the Andes to Coquimbo in Chile. They rode day and night; but by the time they had reached the central ridge of the Andes, their horses sunk under them from fatigue; and on seeing their pursuers approaching in the distance, they abandoned their horses, and continued their flight on foot, making for the craigs and precipices where their pursuers could not possibly follow. They were now safe for the present; and in a few days Leita made his appearance before the Spanish Royalist, General Osorio, representing who he was, and the circumstances under which he had left Rioja; and stating that if the general would supply him with a certain number of men he would engage speedily to reduce the whole province to the dominion of the Spanish monarchy. Osorio could not supply Leita with the required means, but was induced, by his representations, to provide him with letters of recommendation to Pezuela, the viceroy of Peru, who, he said, would be likely to further his view in the proposed project. But to deliver these letters, it was necessary that Leita should travel through a great tract of country in the provinces of Tucuman and Salta, at the imminent risk of

falling in with his enemies. He therefore determined on disguising himself as a poor miner, and taking with him only one attendant as a guide on the road he was to go, leaving his own faithful black behind him to avoid suspicion. In this manner he reached in safety the boundary of the province of Salta. But here, observing a scouting party of fifty men at a distance, Leita hid his money and papers in a thicket hard by; which he had scarcely accomplished when the party came up, and began to make illusory inquiries, which he at first refused to answer, for fear of causing suspicion by his Arragon accent. At last, being compelled by their ill usage and threats to speak, he described himself as a poor miner in search of work. But, as he had feared, his accent excited further suspicions, and they proceeded to beat him and his guide, till the latter at last confessed who Leita was, though he could not disclose the object of his travelling that road. But another blow or two soon induced him to confess where his master had hidden his papers and money; and these disclosed all that they wished to know. They then immediately conducted their prisoner to the city of Tucuman; where he was subjected to a brief and summary trial, and was immediately condemned to death for being in correspondence with the enemies of the Patria. Soon after his condemnation, a priest, named Jose Augustin Colombres, came to confess Leita; and, with the view of extracting from him the knowledge of where he had hidden his supposed treasures, he promised to procure a grant of his life on condition of such disclosure. Leita was easily induced, under his desperate circumstances, to fall into this snare; and having made the desired confession to the wily priest, he was almost immediately shot in the Plaza of the town. Two years after this, the above-named priest made a journey to the Escaleras, for the purpose, as is supposed, of taking away the buried treasure, the knowledge of which he had extracted from its owner;

and thus concluded the first modern mining enterprise of the Famatina.

This history was related to me by a person who was himself intimately connected with the mines then working in the mountain, and who went on to tell me a few further anecdotes relating to them. He said that having by dint of hard industry amassed a little capital, he determined to embark it in the mining speculations which the success of Leita and Echavaria had brought somewhat more into fashion; and that having exhausted his own savings of two thousand dollars, he borrowed 2000 more, with which he was at length successful, and speedily afterwards accumulated a capital of 10,000 dollars; but that disgusted by the vexatious obstacles thrown in his way by the new government, he had retired to Cordova with his little fortune, and embarked it in trade. Until this period the mines of the Fanatina had been looked upon as open to the enterprises of any body who chose to engage in working them. But when Rivadavia came into power in Buenos Ayres, he determined on turning their wealth to a national account. He therefore sent to the governor of Rioja for a statement of the general state of the mines, and their adaptation to the purposes he had in view, of making them subservient to the interests of the state. The consequence was that a great company was formed at Buenos Ayres under the auspices of Messrs. Hullet, Brothers, and Co. consisting partly of English and partly of native merchants; and to this company the right of working all the mines in the province of Rioja was conceded, for a certain period, and under settled restrictions.

It may be well to close this sketch by a brief notice of the present, or at least the very recent, condition of the mines at Famatina. Some years ago, the number of working miners, employed on the mountain, was rather less than four hundred, a comparatively insignificant number, when it is considered that the mountain is twenty

leagues in length, and that not more than about one-fourth of that extent had been, in any way, explored for mining purposes, and even that portion had been examined very imperfectly. Indeed, so rude was the method then employed of working the mines, and so inexhaustible are the riches supposed to be which they contain, that, at the time referred to, the miners used to turn away with contempt from any spot which did not contain ore capable of returning 640 ounces of silver for every cajon (about 4,800lb.); and many of the mines then in work produced an average of four times that proportion. Moreover, so defective was the system of working the mines, it was perfectly well understood that the workmen stole at least half the produce. Yet, notwithstanding all these drawbacks, the profits were understood to be immense, as compared with the capital employed for the purpose. The wages paid to the workmen, at the period now referred to, were as follows :-to the working miner (barretero) twelve dollars per month, and as much beef, bread, and firewood as he chose to consume; to the apire, or laborer, who carried up the ore on his back from the lodes, eight dollars per month, and the same provisions; the overseer (majordomo) was generally paid from twenty-five to thirty dollars per month, and he generally contrived to appropriate as much more. The mountain was, as it were, parcelled out into nine different divisions; of which the richest and most productive was said to be that portion called the Cerro Mejicano, and situated just beneath the snowy ridge. The other portions, bearing the best repute for riches, were the Ampallao, the Cerro Negro, and the Cerro Tigre. In the Cerro Mejicano alone there are eight rich mines. The particular mine which is reputed to be the richest is called the mine of Santo Domingo. It produces abundance of virgin silver, and was, at that time, estimated at the value of 200,000 dollars. The metal of nearly all the mines is silver; but there were

three or four which produced gold. These, however, though more healthy to work than the silver mines, were not looked upon as nearly so profitable. Finally, it may be mentioned, that the mountain of Famatina presents, from the village of Chilecito, a most beautiful and noble appearance, especially in the early morning, when its enormous snow-crowned ridges are

just receiving the rays of the sun. At this period of the day, indeed, it is usually enveloped, for the most part, in light mists. But as these clear away before the increasing power of the sun as it rises, the various effects of light and shade are most curious and beautiful; and when, at last, the whole is enveloped in the full blaze of day, the effect is truly magnificent.

THE RECALL.

BY MRS. HEMANS.

Alas! the kind, the playful, and the gay,
They who have gladden'd their domestic board,

And cheer'd the winter hearth-do they return?-JOANNA BAILLIE.

COME home-there is a sorrowing breath

In music since ye went;

And the early flower-scents wander by,
With mournful memories blent:
The sounds of every household voice
Are grown more sad and deep,

And the sweet word, Brother, wakes a wish
To turn aside and weep.

O ye beloved, come home! the hour
Of many a greeting tone,

The time of hearth-light and of song
Returns-and ye are gone!
And darkly, heavily it falls
On the forsaken room,
Burdening the heart with tenderness,
That deepens 'midst the gloom.

Where finds it you, our wandering ones?
With all your boyhood's glee
Untamed, beneath the desert's palm,

Or on the lone mid-sea?

'Mid stormy hills of battles old,

Or where dark rivers foam?
Oh! life is dim where ye are not-

Back, ye beloved! come home!
Come with the leaves and winds of spring,
And swift birds o'er the main!
Our love is grown too sorrowful,
Bring us its youth again!

Bring the glad tones to music back-
-Still, still your home is fair;
The spirit of your sunny life
Alone is wanting there!

AMERICAN CRITICISM.

[A London Magazine for April contains under this head a critical notice of the January number of the North American Review. The writer's opinion of the merits of the first article in that number is contained in the following extract. He considers the article on Austin's Life of Elbridge Gerry the most powerful one in the number, and that on Irving's Life of Columbus to be" very ably and gracefully written." In the review of "Duke Bernhard of SaxeWeimar's Travels in North America," we have," he says, not a little of the sensitive vanity of the national character." "Upon the whole," he adds, in conclusion, "it is impossible not to regard this periodical as exceedingly creditable to the rising literature of America."]

We do not say

PERHAPS the country that, more than any other, engages the attention of mankind in our day, is the United States of America. that the people of this country are, either on account of their character or their actual achievements, the most interesting on the face of the globe; but in their accidental position they unquestionably are. If we thought, as many do, that they had already completed their grand experiment in government and social regeneration, we should scarcely perhaps say this; but regarding them, as we do, as still on their trial before the world and in the midst of their voyage onward to a mighty fulfilment, or a still mightier

failure, we cannot but feel them to be placed as no other nation is for drawing to them the gaze of a liberal and philosophical curiosity. The subject of the hopes and fears that may be felt with regard to them is, in its general scope, greatly too wide a one for us even to enter upon here; but we may possibly take a future opportunity of hazarding a few remarks upon it, when we can give it our undivided attention. In the mean time we have a very few words to say on a sample of the popular literature of our transatlantic brethren, which now lies before us-" The North American Review," which we noticed, with other American periodicals, in our Number for September last. The last number that has appeared of this work is the sixty-second, dated January in the present year.

The first article in the present number, and perhaps the one of greatest pretension which it contains, purports to be a review of Mr. Hunt's late work on Lord Byron, which, however, the writer dismisses in a single introductory paragraph, devoting the remainder of his space to a dissertation on the Decline of Poetry, of which he is pleased to say Mr. Hunt's name and writings, by a very easy and natural association, remind him. This article is not an unfavorable specimen of that tranchant style of criticism which a few years ago used to be so fashionable among ourselves, but which, we are happy to think, has of late begun rapidly to give place to a more genial manner of estimating both the beauties and the faults, the powers and the weaknesses, of gifted minds. In the times to which we allude our critics used to write, even when in their best humor, and while descanting on the works of the greatest authors of the age, much in the style in which the keepers of menageries are wont to expatiate to the company in exhibiting their wild beasts, mixing, with the most lordly flippancy imaginable, their tones and accents of authority with those of condescending patronage, almost, one would have 30 ATHENEUM, VOL. 2, 3d series.

thought, as if they really took themselves to belong to a different species from the poor devil of a poet, or other man of genius, whom they had got caged and were stirring up with the long pole for their own diversion and that of their readers. Any expres

sion of reverence or humble affection for the noble nature of him whom they had thus summoned into their presence they never for a moment dreamed of giving way to. If the lion had a peculiarly majestic gait, or richly flowing mane, they pointed it out to be sure; but it was principally that they might show their own critical cleverness in detecting the feature, much in the same manner as you might point out in a garden with your walking-stick a fine specimen of a grub or a caterpillar. These were certainly the golden days of critics, if not of criticism. Our reviewers were then the throned sovereigns of the world of literature, at least in their own estimation; and so imposing for a time is mere pretension, that they were actually looked up to and dreaded as such by no small a proportion of the rest of the public. We have, however, as we have said, considerably reformed all this now; the pert scribblers of our reviews and magazines have been taught their proper place; and how infinitely their place is below that, of many at least, of those on whom they were wont to lavish so liberally their insolent ridicule or more offensive courtesies. The several causes to which we are indebted for this revolution we have no time at present to inquire into; but we should despise ourselves if we could be withheld by any feelings, as to other matters, from acknowledging how much of it we owe to the example of one celebrated periodical— "Blackwood's Magazine”—which has, from the very first, lifted a voice of powerful eloquence against the wretched assumption to which we have been adverting, and most ably vindicated that rightful supremacy of genius which it had become so much the fashion of our mere men of talent

to forget. On the other side of the Atlantic, however, if we may judge by the disquisition before us, reviewers have scarcely yet learned to think that there is any one greater than themselves, or in speaking of whom it becomes them to use any other language than such as a schoolmaster would employ in catechising his pupils, or a draper in passing sentence on the quality of a web of broadcloth. This is a smartly-enough-written article; but the tone of it is really from beginning to end, to our taste, insufferably of fensive. We do not greatly complain of the summary style in which Mr. Hunt's literary merits are dismissed; although, without any wish to deny or palliate the affectations and other littlenesses which are to be found in his works, we hold much of his poetry, and a good deal of his prose, in considerably higher estimation than this critic, because he is evidently mentioned merely for the purpose of introducing another subject which alone there is any attempt to discuss seriously and at length. But our lively scribe is, in truth, quite as much at his ease among the greatest names of the age, and of all ages, as he is among the least; and discourses about Byron, and Wordsworth, and Coleridge, and "the good old way of Milton and Pope," almost as flippantly as about Mr. Hunt himself. By-the-bye, what may be this same way of Milton and Pope," which we find so repeatedly recommended as the only model of excellence in these pages? Does this writer really imagine these two poets to be of the same school? or to have any remark able characteristics in common? except, indeed, that they neither of them belong to the present age, which is, to be sure, a most admirable reason for describing them as writing in " one

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way." We can only say that we dissent from our critic here, and also in many of his other opinions; as for example, when he affirms "that there can be no doubt that poetry has been losing the public favor, (his leading proposition,) and that the poets of the present century have contributed to the disrespect into which their art has fallen;" and that "the only thing approaching to a standard of taste is the sentiment of the greatest proportion of men;" and that "Byron's smaller pieces are those of his writings most likely to be admired in future times ;" and that "next to Byron we must place Campbell ;" and that "Wordsworth," the poet who has, in fact, revolutionized our poetry, "has had less influence on the public mind than any distinguished writer of the age ;" and that "Coleridge has been fortunate enough to maintain the reputation of a great genius merely on the strength of his Ancient Mariner;" and multitudes of other assertions of a similar order which meet us in every page of the article. Superficial, however, and as we cannot help thinking, positively erroneous as is much of the philosophy of the disquisition, it is, as we have already said, cleverly written, and contains a good deal of very felicitous expression. We were struck particularly with the passage in which Campbell is described, in allusion to the Essay on English Poetry, in the first volume of his Specimens, as having been employed in "building the older prophets in a beautiful criticism," and with the other place where it is said of Byron, among the recollections of Rome, that "he seems like a guide walking mysteriously through the city, and when he comes to some striking fragment of antiquity, turning upon it the strong light of his dark lantern." Both these figures are worthy of poetry.

BEAUTY.

CROWDS talk of beauty: yes! of the mere word!

'Tis all they know of it. Alas! how few Guess its high attributes!-or e'er have heard

Its portrait drawn in accents glowing,

true,

As only Taste and Feeling, deeply stirred By that which touches them, have power to do.

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