prosecuted. The mist that encircles heroes is composed of an innumerable quantity of weapons of destruction, in miniature; as every man who fell in battle in a useless war, is here typified by a sword, ball, or spear, or if he perished of disease, by a small livid spot. Some are thus surrounded more than others. An illustrious chief, recently arrived, who extended his march to this spot where we assemble, is sometimes wholly enveloped: when the mist breaks away we see in the air inscriptions of religious toleration,' 'road over the Alps,' protection of the arts,' &c. But among all those who as a statesman or a warrior walks these blessed groves, there is but one combining both attributes, whose majestic form is for ever unshrouded; around whom there never flits the representation of a delusive statement, nor an effort of personal intrigue, nor a single minute resemblance of a destructive weapon to signify that a soldier perished in a battle fought with ambitious views; over his head appears in mild radiance an inscription: First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.'"

The form of the Ibis had now vanished as suddenly and silently as it first appeared; the influence of the hour replaced the feeling of awful attention by which it had been suspended. The nocturnal birds, the owls, whip-poor-wills, and bats began their career of nightly occupation and watching, while the rest of the immense assembly soon had their heals under their wings, and presented a more numerous collection than could be formed by the afternoon patients united of a thousand somniferous preachers.

ROBERT C. SANDS,

ONE of the most original of American humorists, a fine scholar, and a poet of ardent imagination, was born in the city of New York, May 11, 1799. His father, Comfort Sands, was a merchant of the city, who had borne a patriotic part in the early struggles of the Revolution. Sands early acquired a taste for the ancient classics, which his education at Columbia College confirmed, to which he afterwards added a knowledge of the modern tongues derived from the Latin. One of his college companions, two years his senior, was his friend and partner in his poetical scheme, James Wallis Eastburn. They projected while in college two literary periodicals, The Moralist and Academic Recreations. The first had but a single number; the other reached a volume;-Sands contributing prose and verse. Graduating with the class of 1815, he entered the law office of David B. Ogden, and contrary to the habit of young poets, studied with zeal and fidelity. His talent for writing, at this time, was a passion. He wrote with facility, and on a great variety of subjects; one of his compositions, a sermon, penned for a friend, finding its way into print, with the name of the clergyman who delivered it. In 1817 he published, in the measure which the works of Scott hal made fashionable, The Bridal of Vaumond, founded, his biographer tells us, 66 on the same legend of the transformation of a decrepit and miserable wretch into a youthful hero, by compact with the infernal powers, which forms the groundwork of Byron's "Deformed Transformed."* This, though spoken of with respect, is not included in the author's writings. His literary history is at this time interwoven with that of his friend, Eastburn, with whom he

* Memoir, by G. C. Verplanck, p. 7.

was translating the Psalms of David into verse, and writing a poem, "Yamoyden," on the history of Philip, the Pequod chieftain. This was planned by Eastburn, while he was pursuing his studies for the ministry, during a residence at Bristol, Rhode Island, in the vicinity of the Indian locality of the poem. It was based on a slight reading of Hubbard's Narrative of the Indian Wars. The two authors chose their parts, and communicated them when finished to each other; the whole poem being written in the winter of 1817 and following spring. While it was being revised, Eastburn, who in the meantime had taken orders in the Protestant Episcopal Church, died in his twenty-second year, December 2, 1819, on a voyage to Santa Cruz, undertaken to recover his health.

The poem was published the year following, in 1820, with an advertisement by Sands, who, on a further study of the subject, had made some additions to the matter. The proem, which celebrates the friendship of the two authors, and the poetical charm of their Indian subject, is justly considered one of the finest of Sands's literary achievements. The basis of the poem belongs to Eastburn.

The literary productions of the latter have never been collected. That they would form a worthy companion volume to the writings of his friend Sands, while exhibiting some characteristic differences of temperament, there is abundant proof in all that is known to the public to have proceeded from his pen. In the absence of further original material, we may here present the tribute paid to his genius by his brother, the Right Reverend Manton Eastburn, of the diocese of Massachusetts, in an oration pronounced in 1837, at the first semi-centennial anniversary of the incorporation of Columbia College by the legislature of New York.

"The remains," said Dr. Eastburn, "which Eastburn has left behind him are amazingly voluminous. I will venture to say that there are few, who, on arriving at the age of twenty-two, which was the limit of his mortal career, will be found to have accomplished so much literary composition. His prose writings, many of which appeared anonymously in a series of periodical essays, conducted by himself and some of his friends, take in an extensive range of moral and classical disquisition; and are models of the purest Addisonian English. The great charm, however, of all his writings, is the tone that breathes through them. Whatever be the subject, the reader is never allowed to forget, that the pages before him are indited with a pen dipped in the dew of heaven. An illustration of this peculiar feature of his productions will form the most appropriate ending of this brief offering to his memory. On one glorious night of June, 1819, during his residence as a parochial clergyman upon the eastern shore of Virginia, and a few months before his death, he sat up until the solemn hour of twelve to enjoy the scene. The moon was riding in her majesty; her light fell upon the waters of the Chesapeake; and all was hushed into stillness. Under the immediate inspiration of such a spectacle, he penned the following lines, which he has entitled The Summer Midnight.' After having given

them to you, my fellow-collegians, I will leave you to decide whether the character I have just drawn be a true portrait, or has been dictated only by the natural enthusiasm of a brother's love.

"The breeze of night has sunk to rest,
Upon the river's tranquil breast;
And every bird has sought her nest,
Where silent is her minstrelsy;
The queen of heaven is sailing high,
A pale bark on the azure sky,
Where not a breath is heard to sigh-
So deep the soft tranquillity.
"Forgotten now the heat of day
That on the burning waters lay,
The noon of night her mantle grey
Spreads, for the sun's high blazonry;
But glittering in that gentle night
There gleams a line of silvery light,
As tremulous on the shores of white
It hovers sweet and playfully.
At peace the distant shallop rides;
Not as when dashing o'er her sides
The roaring bay's unruly tides

Were beating round her gloriously;
But every sail is furled and still:
Silent the seaman's whistle shrill,
While dreamy slumbers seem to thrill
With parted hours of ecstasy.

"Stars of the many-spangled heaven!
Faintly this night your beams are given,
Tho' proudly where your hosts are driven
Ye rear your dazzling galaxy;
Since far and wide a softer hue
Is spread across the plains of blue,
Where in bright chorus, ever true,
For ever swells your harmony.

"O for some sadly dying note
Upon this silent hour to float,
Where from the bustling world remote
The lyre might wake its melody;
One feeble strain is all can swell
From mine almost deserted shell,
In mournful accents yet to tell

That slumbers not its minstrelsy.
"THERE IS AN HOUR of deep repose

That yet upon my heart shall close,
When all that nature dreads and knows
Shall burst upon me wondrously;
O may I then awake for ever
My harp to rapture's high endeavor,
And as from earth's vain scene I sever,
Be lost in Immortality!"

In 1822 and 1823, Sands was writing for the Literary Review, a monthly New York periodical, in conjunction with some friends, associated in a junto known as the Literary Confederacy. They were four in number, and had already contributed the series of papers, "The Neologist" to the Daily Advertiser, and "The Amphilogist" to the Commercial Advertiser; and in 1822 and 1823 he furnished, in conjunction with his friends, numerous articles to the Literary Review, a New York monthly periodical, and in the winter of 1822-1, the confederacy published the seven numbers of the St. Tammany Magazine.

In May, 1824, Sands commenced the Atlantic Magazine, which he edited, and for which he wrote many of the articles during its first volume;

Robulbhunde

when it became the New York Review he again entered upon the editorship, which he continued, supplying many ingenious and eloquent papers till 1827. After this he became associated in the conduet of the Commercial Advertiser, a post which he occupied at his death.

In 1828, he wrote an Historical Notice of Hernan Cortes, to accompany a publication of the Cortes Letters for the South American market. For this purpose it was translated into Spanish by Manuel Dominguez, and was not published in the author's own language till the collection of his writings was made after his death. In this year The Talisman was projected. It turned out in the hands of its publisher, Elam Bliss, to be an annual, according to the fashion of the day, but it was originally undertaken by the poet Bryant, Verplanck, and Sands, as a joint collection of Miscellanies, after the manner of Pope, Swift, and their friends. The Talisman, under the editorship of the imaginary Francis Herbert, Esq., and written by the three authors, was continued to a third volume in 1830. It was afterwards reissued according to the original plan, with the title of Miscellanies.

The "Dream of the Princess Papantzin," first published in the Talisman, founded on a legend recorded by the Abbé Clavigero, a poem of more than four hundred lines of blank verse, is considered by Mr. Verplanck "one of the most perfect specimens left by Mr. Sands of his poetic powers, whether we regard the varied music of the versification, the freedom and splendor of the diction, the nobleness and affluence of the imagery, or the beautiful and original use he has made of the Mexican mythology."

In 1831 Sands published the Life and Correspondence of Paul Jones. The next year he was again associated with Bryant in the brace of volumes entitled Tales of the Glauber Spa, to which Paulding, Leggett, and Miss Sedgwick were also contributors, and for which Sands wrote the hu

morous introduction, the tale of Mr. Green, and an imaginative version of the old Spanish fountain of youth story, entitled Boyuca. His last finished composition was a poem in the Commercial Advertiser, The Dead of 1832.

At the very instant of his death he was engaged upon an article of invention for the first number of the Knickerbocker Magazine upon Esquimaux Literature, for which he had filled his mind with the best reading on the country. It was while engaged on this article on the 17th December, 1832, that he was suddenly attacked by apoplexy. He had written with his pencil the line for one of the poems by which he was illustrating his topic,

Oh think not my spirit among you abides,

some uncertain marks followed from his stricken arm; he rose and fell on the threshold of his room, and lived but a few hours longer.

The residence of Sands for the latter part of his life was at Hoboken, then a rural village within sight of New York. In that quiet retreat, and in the neighborhood of the woods of Weehawken,

The Wood at Hoboken.

celebrated by his own pen as well as by the muse of Halleck, he drew his kindly inspirations of nature, which he hardly needed to temper his always charitable judgments of men. His character has been delicately touched by Bryant in the memoir in the Knickerbocker,* and drawn out with genial sympathy by Verplanck in the biography prefixed to his published writings.† Sands was a inan of warm and tender feeling, a loving humorist whose laughter was the gay smile of profound sensibility; of a kindling and rapid imagination, which did not disdain the labor and acquisitions of mature scholarship. He died unmarried, having always lived at home in his father's house. It is related of him, in connexion with his love of nature, that he was so near-sighted that he had never seen the stars from his childhood to his sixteenth year, when he obtained appropriate glasses.

That American literature experienced a great loss in the early death of Sands, will be felt by the reader who makes acquaintance with his well cultivated, prompt, exuberant genius, which pro

mised, had life been spared, a distinguished career of genial mental activity and productiveness.

HOBOKEN.*

For what is nature? ring her changes round,
Her three flat notes are water, woods, and ground;
Prolong the peal-yet, spite of all her clatter,

The tedious chime is still-grounds, wood, and water.

Is it so, Master Satirist?-does the all-casing air, with the myriad hues which it lends to and borrows again from the planet it invests, make no change in the appearance of the spectacula rerum, the visible exhibitions of nature? Have association and contrast nothing to do with them? Nature can afford to be satirized. She defies burlesque. Look at her in her barrenness, or her terrific majesty-in her poverty, or in her glory-she is still the mighty mother, whom man may superficially trick out, but cannot substantially alter. Art can only succeed by following her; and its most magnificent triumphs are achieved by a religious observance of her rules. It is a proud and primitive prerogative of man, that the physical world has been left under his control, to a certain extent, not merely for the purpose of raising from it his sustenance, but of modifying its appearance to gratify the eye of taste, and, by beautifying the material creation, of improving the spiritual elements of his own being.

When the Duke of Bridgewater's engineer was examined by the House of Commons as to his views on the system of internal communication by water, he gave it as his opinion that rivers were made by the Lord to feed canals; and it is true that Providence has given us the raw material to make what we can out of it.

This may be thought too sublime a flourish for an introduction to the luxuriant and delightful landscape by Weir, an engraving from which embellishes the present number of the Mirror. But, though it may be crudely expressed, it is germain to the subject. Good taste and enterprise have done for Hoboken precisely what they ought to have done, without violating the propriety of nature. Those who loved its wild haunts before the metamorphosis, were, it is true, not a little shocked at what they could not but consider a desecration; and thought they heard the nymphs screaming "We are off," when carts, bullocks, paddies, and rollers came to clear the forest sanctuary. They were ready to exclaim with the poet, Cardinal Bernis

Quelle étonnante barbarie
D'asservir la varieté

Au cordeau de la symmetrie;
De polir la rusticité

D'un bois fait pour la reverie, Et d'orner la simplicité

De cette riante paririe !t

But "cette riante prairie" is now one of the prettiest places you may see of a summer's day. It is appropriately called the Elysian Fields, and does, indeed, remind the spectator of

Yellow meads of asphodel, And amaranthine bowers.

It is now clothed in vivid, transparent, emerald green; its grove is worthy of being painted by

*First published in the New York Mirror, to accompany a landscape by Weir, of which the wood engraving in this article is a copy.

Oh, what a shocking thing to sacrifice
Variety to symmetry,

In such a wise!

To polish the rusticity

Of that old wood, designed for revery,

And ornament the simple grace,

Of that fair meadow's smiling face.-PRINTER'S DEVIL.

Claude Lorraine; and from it you may look, and cannot help looking, on one of the noblest rivers, and one of the finest cities in the universe.

Hoboken has been illustrated so often, in poetry and prose, and by the pencil of the limner, in late years, that it would be vain and superfluous to attempt a new description. A "sacred bard," one who will be held such in the appreciation of posterity, has spoken of the walk from this village to Weehawken as one of the most beautiful in the world," and has given, in prose, a picture of its appearance. Another writer, whose modest genius (I beg your pardon, Messrs. Editors he is one of your own gang) leavens the literary aliment of our town, and the best part of whom shall assuredly "escape libitina," has elegantly and graphically described the spot in illustrating another series of pictorial views. Halleck's lines are as familiar as household words. Francis Herbert has made the vicinity the scene of one of his tough stories. At least half a dozen different views have been taken of it within the last two years. They embraced, generally, an extensive view of the river, bay, and city. Weir has selected a beautiful spot, in one of the new walks near the mansion of Colonel Stevens, with a glimpse of the splendid sheet of water through the embowering foliage. That gentleman, and lady with a parasol, in front of the prim, and who look a little prim themselves, seem to enjoy the loveliness of the scene, as well as the society of one another. Our country has reason to reckon with pride the name of Weir among those of her artists.

The sunny Italy may boast

The beauteous hues that flush her skies;

he has seen, admired, studied, and painted them; but he can find subjects for his pencil as fair, in his own land, and no one can do them more justice.

It is a fact not generally known, that there is, or was, an old town in Holland called Hoboken, from which, no doubt, this place was named. There was also a family of that name in Holland. A copy of an old work on medicine, by a Dutch physician of the name of Hoboken, is in the library of one of the eminent medical men of this city. The oldest remaining house upon it, for it is insulated, forms the rear of Mr. Thomas Swift's hotel upon the green, and was built sixty years ago, as may be seen by the iron memorandums practicated in the walls. There is at present a superb promenade along the margin of the river, under the high banks and magnesia rocks which overlook it, of more than a mile in length, on which it is intended to lay rails, for the edification of our domestic cockneys and others, who might not else have a chance of seeing a locomotive in operation, and who may be whisked to the Elysian fields before they will find time to comb their whiskers, or count the seconds.

In this genial season of the year, a more appropriate illustration could not be furnished for the Mirror than a view of this pleasant spot. We say, with Horace, let others cry up Thessalian Tempe, &c., our own citizens have a retreat from the dust and heat of the metropolis more agreeable—

Quam domus Albuneæ resonantis,

Et præceps Anio, et Tiburni lucus, et uda
Mobilibus pomaria rivis.

But, as some of your readers may not undertand Latin, let us imitate, travesty, and doggrelize the ode

American Landscape. Edited by W. C. Bryant, No. 1. This work was projected by the New York artists; but the project has been abandoned.

Views of New York and its Environs. Published by Peabody & Co., and edited by T. S. Fay.

of Flaccus bodily. There is an abrupt transition in the middle of it, which critics have differed about; but I suppose it is preserved as he wrote it; the whole of the old rascal's great argument being, that with good wine you may be comfortable in any place, even in Communipaw.

Laudabunt alii clarum Rhodon, &c.
Let Willis tell, in glittering prose,
Of Paris and its tempting shows;
Let Irving while his fancy glows,
Praise Spain, renowned-romantic!
Let Cooper write, until it palls,
Of Venice, and her marble walls,
Her dungeons, bridges, and canals,
Enough to make one frantic!

Let voyageurs Macadamize,
With books, the Alps that climb the skies,
And ne er forget, in anywise,

Geneva's lake and city;

And poor old Rome-the proud, the great,
Fallen-fallen from her high estate,
No cockney sees, but he must prate
About her-what a pity!

Of travellers there is no lack,
God knows each one of them a hack,
Who ride to write, and then go back
And publish a long story,
Chiefly about themselves; but each
Or in dispraise or praise, with breach
Of truth on either side, will preach
About some place's glory.

For me who never saw the sun
His course o'er other regions run,
Than those whose franchise well was won

By blood of patriot martyrs-
Fair fertile France may smile in vain;
Nor will I seek thy ruins, Spain:
Albion, thy freedom I disdain,

With all thy monarch's charters.
Better I love the river's side,
Where Hudson's sounding waters glide,
And with their full majestic tide

To the great sea keep flowing:
Weehawk, I loved thy frowning height,
Since first I saw, with fond delight,
The wave beneath the rushes bright,
And the new Rome still growing.

[Here occurs the seeming hiatus above referred to. He proceeds as follows:]

Though lately we might truly say,
"The rain it raineth every day,"
The wind can sweep the clouds away,
And open daylight's shutters:

So, Colonel Morris, my fine man,
Drink good champagne whene'er you can,
Regardless of the temperance plan,
Or what the parson utters.
Whether in regimentals fine,
Upon a spanking horse you shine,
Or supervise the works divine

Of scribblers like the present:
Trust me, the good old stuff, the blood
Of generous grapes, well understood
On sea, on land, in town, in wood,

Will make all places pleasant.
For hear what Ajax Teucer said,*
Whose brother foolishly went dead
For spleen-to Salamis he sped,

Sans Telamon's dead body;
His father kicked him off the stoop-
Said he, "For this I will not droop;
The world has realms wherein to snoop,
And I am not a noddy.

"Come, my brave boys, and let us go,
As fortune calls, or winds may blow-
Teucer your guide, the way will show-
Fear no mishap nor socrow:
Another Salamis as fine,

Is promised by the Delphic shrine:
So stuff your skins to-night with wine,
We'll go to sea to-morrow."

The papa of the two Ajaces charged them, when they started for Troy, to bring one another home; or else he threatened not to receive the survivor. Ajax Telamon being miffed, because the armour of Achilles was awarded to Ulysses, went crazy, killed sheep, and made a holocaust of himself. When Teucer went home without him, the old gentleman shut the door in his face.-Free translation of Mad. Dacier.

PROEM TO YAMOYDEN.

Go forth, sad fragments of a broken strain, The last that either bard shall e'er essay ! The hand can ne'er attempt the chords again, That first awoke them, in a happier day: Where sweeps the ocean breeze its desert way, His requiem murmurs o'er the moaning wave; And he who feebly now prolongs the lay, Shall ne'er the minstrel's hallowed honours crave; His harp lies buried deep, in that untimely grave! Friend of my youth, with thee began the love Of sacred song; the wont, in golden dreams, 'Mid classic realms of splendours past to rove, O'er haunted steep, and by immortal streams; Where the blue wave, with sparkling bosom gleams Round shores, the mind's eternal heritage, For ever lit by memory's twilight beams; Where the proud dead that iive in storied page, Beckon, with awful port, to glory's earlier age.

There would we linger oft, entranced, to hear, O'er battle fields, the epic thunders roll; Or list, where tragic wail upon the ear, Through Argive palaces shrill echoing, stole; There would we mark, uncurbed by all control, In central heaven, the Theban eagle's flight, Or hold communion with the musing soul Of sage or bard, who sought, 'mid pagan night, In loved Athenian groves, for truth's eternal light.

Homeward we turned, to that fair land, but late Redeemed from the strong spell that bound it fast, Where mystery, brooding o'er the waters, sate And kept the key, till three millenniums past; When, as creation's noblest work was last, Latest, to man it was vouchsafed, to see Nature's great wonder, long by clouds o'ercast, And veiled in sacred awe, that it might be An empire and a home, most worthy for the free. And here, forerunners strange and meet were found,

Of that blessed freedom, only dreamed before;Dark were the morning mists, that lingered round Their birth and story, as the hue they bore. "Earth was their mother;"-or they knew no

more,

Or would not that their secret should be told; For they were grave and silent, and such lore, To stranger ears, they loved not to unfold, The long-transmitted tales their sires were taught of old.

Kind nature's commoners, from her they drew Their needful wants, and learned not how to hoard, And him whom strength and wisdom crowned, they knew,

But with no servile reverence, as their lord. And on their mountain summits they adored One great, good Spirit, in his high abode, And thence their incense and orisons poured To his pervading presence, that abroad They felt through all his works, their Father, King, and God,

And in the mountain mist, the torrent's spray,
The quivering forest, or the glassy flood,
Soft falling showers, or hues of orient day,
They imaged spirits beautiful and good;
But when the tempest roared, with voices rude,
Or fierce, red lightning fired the forest pine,
Or withering heats untimely seared the wood,
The angry forms they saw of powers malign;
These they besought to spare, those blest for aid di-
vine.

As the fresh sense of life, through every vein,
With the pure air they drank, inspiring came,

Comely they grew, patient of toil and pain,
And as the fleet deer's agile was their frame;
Of meaner vices scarce they knew the name;
These simple truths went down from sire to son,-
To reverence age, the sluggish hunter's shame,
And craven warrior's infamy to shun,-

And still avenge each wrong, to friends or kindred done.

From forest shades they peered, with awful dread,
When, uttering flame and thunder from its side,
The ocean-monster, with broad wings outspread,
Came ploughing gallantly the virgin tide.
Few years have passed, and all their forests' pride
From shores and hills has vanished, with the race,
Their tenants erst, from memory who have died,
Like airy shapes, which eld was wont to trace,
In each green thicket's depth, and lone, sequestered
place.

And many a gloomy tale, tradition yet
Saves from oblivion, of their struggles vain,
Their prowess and their wrongs, for rhymer meet,
To people scenes, where still their names remain;
And so began our young, delighted strain,
That would evoke the plumed chieftains brave,
And bid their martial hosts arise again,

Where Narraganset's tides roll by their grave, And Haup's romantic steeps are piled above the

wave.

Friend of my youth! with thee began my song, And o'er thy bier its latest accents die; Misled in phantom-peopled realms too long,Though not to me the muse averse deny, Sometimes, perhaps, her visions to descry, Such thriftless pastime should with youth be o'er; And he who loved with thee his notes to try, But for thy sake, such idlesse would deplore, And swears to meditate the thankless muse no more.

But, no! the freshness of the past shall still Sacred to memory's holiest musings be; When through the ideal fields of song, at will, He roved and gathered chaplets wild with thee; When, reckless of the world, alone and free, Like two proud barks, we kept our careless way, That sail by moonlight o'er the tranquil sea; Their white apparel and their streamers gay, Bright gleaming o'er the main, beneath the ghostly ray;

And downward, far, reflected in the clear Blue depths, the eye their fairy tackling sees; So buoyant, they do seem to float in air, And silently obey the noiseless breeze; Till, all too soon, as the rude winds may please, They part for distant ports: the gales benign Swift wafting, bore, by Heaven's all-wise decrees, To its own harbour sure, where each divine And joyous vision, seen before in dreams, is thine. Muses of Helicon! melodious race Of Jove and golden-haired Mnemosyné; Whose art from memory blots each sadder trace, Aud drives each scowling form of grief away! Who, round the violet fount, your measures gay Once trod, and round the altar of great Jove, Whence, wrapt in silvery clouds, your nightly