of the forefinger of each plaintiff who was nonsuited would discourage litigation. But this is tyranny. But this is tyranny. As things now go men will often abandon a valuable right rather than be at the trouble and expense of a lawsuit; and this is tyranny. In England a man cannot appeal to the legislature, but with heavy expense. If it were proposed to abolish the present charges incident to presenting a memorial to the House of Commons, no doubt it would be urged that, if this were done, the house would be overwhelmed with memorials. They are presented gratis in Congress and all our State Legislatures, and no such evils result.

ELIJAH AND ELISHA.

THEY came to Jordan's holy flood-
The prophet and his follower came→→

One to depart and be with God,

One to receive his master's flame.
Long they communed on heavenly themes,
While visions of the parting hour

Came o'er each soul, with shadowy gleams,
And touched their speech with burning power.

Profoundly still the waters lay,

Beneath the Spirit's brooding might;

Rich, in the beams of parting day,

Tinged deep and soft with purple light,

The Prophet's mantle gleamed like fire

Then smote the stream. From the veiled earth

The flashing waters back retire,

Cleft by the Power that gave them birth.

So on they passed; but when they turned,
To view the path, which faith had won,
The waves were rippling there, and burned,
Unbroken, to the setting sun.

So on they passed, and twilight gray

Her sober shade around them drew;
Night come with stars, whose restless ray
Dim radiance o'er their footsteps threw.

And still with fervent speech they talked,
Of glory past or to be given ;

When sudden, o'er the path they walked,

A lightning flash stream'd down from heaven.

A chariot of living flame

With fiery steeds rode through the sky;
Far flashing on the night it came,

Whirled past the starry worlds on high.

The mighty roar of flames sublime
Rush'd through the agitated air;
And ere they gazed a moment's time
Upon the swift, wide bickering car,
It touched the earth-leaving the sky
A long, long road of misty light,
So broad and brilliant, that on high,

The many burning stars seemed white.

It touch'd the earth and near them drew,
And burn'd around the Prophet's frame,
And from Elisha's wondering view

A whirlwind caught the car of flame.-
But as it rode beyond the sky,

That glorious mantle dropped in light,
Before Elisha's kindling eye,

Instinct with all the Prophet's might.

He wrapt the robe about his form,
And, in the Spirit of the Lord,
With all his master's ardor warm,
Returned to execute his word.

Alone, he walked the same bright path,

By faith communed with God in heaven,
The messenger of his fierce wrath,
Or blessed grace to Israel given.

G. B. C.

NATIONAL LITERATURE.

THAT the peculiarities which mark the literature of different nations are to be ascribed to peculiarities of national character, is so plausible a solution of a great literary problem, that it is usually assented to, without much hesitation. Yet, like many other commonly received opinions, the more it is examined the less it satisfies. The Greeks were celebrated for vivacity of imagination, warm fancies, and metaphysical acuteness; yet their literature is remarkable for never overstepping the modesty of nature, for its simple, chaste, severe and sober beauties. The Germans, whether justly or not, have been stigmatized as a slow, dull phlegmatic people, yet their literature, that new honor of which they are so proud,

is forever touching the brink of absurdity, grotesque, extravagant, artificial, and full of sophisms and paradox. These are contradictions hard to be reconciled, yet here is nothing peculiar; the Greeks and Germans are specimens, not exceptions. Choose what nation and what literature you please, an attempt to explain the facts of the case by the theory in question, will go far to prove, that although it sounds well, it has no solid foundation. Indeed, it will not be difficult to show, on general principles, that the higher literature of a nation can have but very little connexion, and that merely accidental, with the national character.

National character is the complex result of the passions, prejudices and humors of the mass of the people; intellect has little to do with it; national literature is the embodied fancy and reason of a chosen few, raised by nature, or elevated by their own strenuous exertions above the vulgar level :

Pauci quos acquus amavit

Jupiter, aut ardens evexit ad aethera virtus.

Talents are no preservative against the natural frailties of humanity. But the errors of genius are not those vulgar errors which ordinary men learn of one another, and which circulate through the world a common stock of absurdity. There is no pride like the pride of intellect; mental superiority has been found associated with most other weaknesses, but perhaps never with a servile submission to received notions and popular opinions.

Let us however avoid being led into error by ambiguity of language. The word literature is now commonly used in two very different senses; these senses are, perhaps, in many minds confounded; but they ought carefully to be distinguished by all, who undertake to speculate on this subject. There is a sort of literature, the current literature of the day, which may justly enough be considered as bearing the impress of the popular mind, because it is produced for popular use, varies daily, as popular notions vary, and by a common process of action and reaction is influenced by and influences popular opinion. This sort of literature, both as to substance and style, is subject to all the fluctuations and caprices of fashion; it accommodates itself with singular flexibility to the taste and capacity of its patrons; echoes and re-echoes, in all possible forms of repetition, the prevailing notions of the times, recommends itself by a flattery not always very delicate, and a submission to vulgar prejudice often honest, though seldom dignified. It escapes the charge of pedantry, for its authors are not commonly learned; of dullness, for it lacks depth; of being commonplace, by running into absurdity. Yet, as fashions change, it gains the fame of erudition by quoting and praising books which no one reads, and of profundity by delivering, in a mystical way, doctrines which no one under

stands. It is limited, local, transient; in fact, only one of the ordinary luxuries of civilized life, abundantly produced, but useful only for immediate consumption; very well in its way, but too much diluted to keep long. Like the weak wines, it is seldom palatable if a year old; like small beer, it often spoils with a week's keeping. The newspapers, and the great mass of the people read little else, are nothing but waste paper the second day after they are published; the Magazines linger on, perhaps, for a month; the Reviews survive thrice as long; but within the narrow circuit of every year, what hosts of orations, sermons, and pamphlets of all sorts, poems, novels, memoirs, travels and histories, come forth in all the beauties of fair type and fine paper, flutter awhile in the sunshine of popular favor, are read, praised, criticised-and forgotten :

"They are such stuff

As dreams are made of, and their little life
Is rounded with a sleep."

This sort of literature, however trifling and transitory, is not without its importance. It does not appear, that in the general system of things, the tribes of annual plants, that perish with every autumnal frost, are not of equal consequence with the forests that survive a thousand winters. Yet the human mind has a natural contempt for everything that easily decays. It is so in the natural as in the intellectual world; we prize the diamond above the rose; and we read with sincere admiration only those authors who have attained, or for whom we anticipate a permanent fame. For this reason, when we speak of the literature of a nation, we must be understood to intend something lasting, solid, substantial. National literature implies accumulated treasures of poetry and philosophy; monuments of learning, and labors of science; works like the Iliad and the Eniad; writers like Plato, Cicero, and Shakspeare. It is not, indeed, uncommon for these great names to be profaned, and in a commerce of mutual flattery, to be alternately conferred on one another by scribblers.

"Thus we dispose of all poetic merit,

Yours Milton's genius, and mine Homer's spirit,
Call Tibbald, Shakspeare, and he'll sware the nine,
Dear Cibber! never matched one ode of thine."

But this is a sacrilege which ought carefully to be avoided. We may admire, we may praise; but time has the sole prerogative of conferring immortality. National literature is therefore a work of time, for it ought to include many productions of undeniable excellence; it must be copious and various, leaving no subject untreated, and no department of learning entirely unoccupied. The animating principle of such a literature as this, is not the breath of popular favor; but rather that deep admiration of the beautiful, that ardent

love of truth, that eager spirit of enterprize, that unappeasable longing after something higher and better than this world affords, which is continually spurring on men of great genius to great attempts.

If there be any truth in these remarks, they show the futility of that advice, which American critics are forever giving American authors. We are told that a literature truly national, truly American, must be built up, and that to accomplish this, every page must be made to smack of the national character; republicanism must peep out at every line, and the glories of popular institutions be shouted to the skies;-America must be eulogized, the enlightened, the educated, the free,-our glorious ancestors, and our glorious selves! Now all this answers very well in Fourth of July orations, Phi Beta addresses, or speeches at political or complimentary dinners. But suppose, that like Milton, I wish to write " such a poem as posterity would not willingly let die," or, like Thucydides, I desire to compose a history, that shall be итйμа eiç dιov, "a possession for eternity," what is all this declamation to me? It may tickle the ears, and delight the fancy of my contemporaries, but will it pass current ten centuries hence? The Republic may then be in the dust, those who founded it, and those who destroyed it alike forgotten; or if remembered,-remembered only because some allusions to them obscure the works of the poet, or because the historian has made their actions the text, from which he delivers lessons in human nature and the art of government. The present, with the mass of men, fills up the whole circle of vision. What has been is not inquired; and he who does not know the past can form no rational judgment of the future. Those who find themselves for a moment at the top of the wheel, fondly conceive that at length the revolution of things stands still. The favorites of the hour, "the little great men of the day," all fancy themselves walking forward to immortality, and desire the crowd behind them to look on. The crowd takes them at their word. Patriot, philosopher and poet are shouted in their train. Where was there ever so much merit seen? No times so important as our own; ages yet unborn shall gaze with wonder and applause!* But with all this clamor of mutual congratulation, generation after generation descends into oblivion; the flatterers and the flattered, the applauders and the applauded are forgotten together; while those only have a chance to be remem bered, who have endeavored to embody in their writings those great, universal and invariable principles of truth and beauty, which strike and please alike at all times and in all places.

The self-constituted gentlemen-ushers of American literature have proceeded, with utter contempt of these doctrines, to lay down two rules, to which, under penalty of their high displeasure, and also of

* Goldsmith's Essays. The Bee, No. vi.