For many generations past

Here is our family tree:

My mother's hand this bible clasped;
She, dying, gave it me.

Ah! well do I remember those

Whose names these records bear;

Who round the hearth-stone used to close
After the evening prayer,
And speak of what these pages said,
In tones my heart would thrill!
Though they are with the silent dead,
Here are they living still!

My father read this holy book,
To brothers, sisters, dear;

How calm was my poor mother's look,
Who leaned God's word to hear.

Her angel face--I see it yet!

What thrilling memories come!
Again that little group is met
Within the halls of home!

Thou truest friend man ever knew,
Thy constancy I've tried;

When all were false I found thee true,

My counsellor and guide.

The mines of earth no treasures give
That could this volume buy;
In teaching me the way to live,
It taught me how to die.

GEORGE W. BURNAP,

A CLERGYMAN of the Unitarian Church, and author of numerous publications, chiefly of a devotional character, was born in Merrimack, New Hampshire, in 1802. His father, the Rev. Jacob Burnap, was for a long time pastor of a Congregational church in that town. The son was a graduate of Harvard of 1824, and in 1827 succeeded the Rev. Jared Sparks, in the charge of the First Independent Church of Baltimore, Md.

In 1835 he commenced author by publishing a volume of Lectures on the Doctrines of Controversy between Unitarians and other Denominations of Christians. In 1840 he published a volume of Lectures to Young Men on the Cultivation of the Mind, the Formation of Character, and the Conduct of Life; in the same year, a volume of Lectures on the Sphere and Duties of Women; and in 1824, Lectures on the History of Christianity. In 1844 he contributed to Sparks's "American Biography," a memoir of Leonard Calvert, first governor of Maryland. In 1845 he published Expository Lectures on the Principal Texts of the Bible which relate to the Doctrine of the Trinity: a volume of Miscellanies; and a Biography of Henry T. Ingalls. In 1848 he published a small work entitled Popular Objections to Unitarian Christianity Considered and Answered; and in 1850, twenty discourses, On the Rectitude of Human Nature. He has been a contributor to the pages of The Christian Examiner since the year 1834.*

In 1855 he published a volume, entitled, Christianity, its Essence and Evidence. This work contains the results of his studies of the New Testament for twenty years, and may be looked upon probably as the most compendious statement of the biblical theology of the author's

In this enumeration of Dr. Burnap's writings we are indebted to Mr. Redfield's publication, The Men of the Time, ed. 1552.

school of Unitarianism. He follows in the main the track of Andrews Norton; and with great boldness in animadverting upon some portions of the New Testament canon, he unites the most earnest defence of the supernatural origin of Christianity. He is a laborious student, a close reasoner, a terse and instructive writer. In richness of imagery and persuasive rhetoric he is less gifted than in clear statement and logical force.

ISOLATION OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES. A PROMOTION OF

DEMOCRACY.*

This leads me to speak of the next cause of the Democracy of the North American Colonies, which I shall mention-their isolation. Three thousand miles of ocean intervened between them and the old world. This circumstance was not without the most decisive and important effects. The people had their own way, because they could not be controlled by their old masters at the distance of three thousand miles. Nobility never emigrated. There was nothing to tempt it to quit its ancient home. It was a plant of such a peculiar structure, that it would not bear translation to another soil. Here it would have withered and died, amidst the rugged forests and stern climate of America. A nobleman is the creation of a local conventionalism. He flourishes only in an artificial atmosphere. He must be seen by gas-light. He is at home only in courts and palaces.

The pomp of courts, and the splendor of palaces, are the contrivances, not more of human pride than of far-sighted policy. They are intended to impose on the imagination of the multitude; to lead them to associate with the condition of their superiors, the ideas of providential and unattainable superiority, to which it is their destiny and their duty to submit. Take them away from the stage on which they choose to exhibit themselves; strip them of their dramatic costume; take away the overhanging chandelier and the glare of the foot lights, and let them mingle in the common crowd, and they become as other men, and the crowd begin to wonder how they could ever have looked up to them with so much reverence.

They gained likewise advantages from associating together. An English nobleman had a hereditary right to a seat in the House of Lords. He made a part of the national legislature. This privilege was independent of the popular will. It was real power, a possession so flattering to the pride of man. There was no reason, therefore, why such a man should wish to leave his country. What could he find here congenial to his taste, or flattering to his pride, or tolerable to his habits of luxury and selfindulgence?

A rude village on the shore of the ocean, or on the banks of a stream, of a few log cabins, scattered here and there in the wilderness, was all the New World had to offer for many generations. Not many would emigrate to such a country, who had anything to leave behind. Much less was it to be expected, that those would come here, who had drawn the highest prizes in life at home. They could not seek a new organization of the social condition, in which they had nothing to gain and everything to lose. Here and there there might be an adventurer of condition, who came to this country to improve his broken fortunes; but then it was, as in all new countries, with a hope of returning to enjoy his gains in a country and a state of society, where refined enjoyment was possible.

* From a Discourse, “Origin and Causes of Democracy in America," before the Maryland Society, Baltimore. 1853.

And after all, beyond a limited circle, America was, at that time, very little known and very little regarded by the people of England. And it is very much so to the present hour. The best informed people, strange as it may seem, know little more of the Geography of this country than they do of the interior of Africa; and thousands and thousands who move in respectable society, are ignorant whether we are white or copper-colored, speak the English language or Choctaw.

America, then, grew up in neglect and by stealth. Unattractive to the higher classes, she drew to herself the people. Here came the people, the hardhanded and stout-hearted, and carved out a New World for themselves. They adapted their institutions to their wants, and before the Old World was aware, there had sprung up on this broad continent a gigantic Republic, ready to take her position among the nations of the earth.

NICHOLAS MURRAY.

This writer, whose works have attracted a considerable share of attention from the Protestant community, was born in Ireland in 1802. There he was educated for the mercantile profession. He came to America in 1818, and was engaged for a short time in the printing-office of the Messrs. Harper, who were then laying the foundations for their large publishing establishment. This connexion has always been remembered with pleasure; and the Harpers have since published the numerous editions of the author's writings.

He entered Williams College, Mass., in 1822, and was graduated in due course in the front rank of his class. He then entered the Theological Seminary at Princeton in 1826, and left it in the spring of 1829, to take the pastorate of the church in Wilkesbarre, Pa., where he was ordained in November, 1829. In June, 1833, he was called as Pastor to the First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethtown, N. J. Here he has since remained, though frequently solicited to remove to New York, Brooklyn, Boston, Charleston, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Natchez, and to two theological professorships.

His first essay at writing for the public was, whilst in College. In Wilkesbarre, he wrote for the Christian Advocate, a monthly, edited by Dr. Ashbel Green, then ex-president of Princeton College. After his removal to Elizabethtown, he wrote for the papers, and a few articles for the Literary and Theological Journal, then edited by Dr. Woods. He also published a few occasional sermons. In 1844, he published a small volume, Notes Historical and Biographical, concerning Elizabethtown.

In 1847, appeared the first series of Controversial Letters to Bishop Hughes, by Kirwan, a nom de plume which soon became quite famous. In 1848, a second and third series of these Letters appeared. They have been translated into several languages.

In 1851, he published a pamphlet, The Decline of Popery and its Causes, in reply to one of Bishop Hughes. His Romanism at Home, which has passed through many editions, was published in 1852. In 1851, he made a tour in Europe, of which he published his observations in 1853, with the title Men and Things as seen in Europe. 1854, appeared his Parish Pencilling, a sketchbook of clerical experiences.

In

CYNTHIA TAGGART

THERE are few sadder stories in the whole range of literary biography than that of this lady, and on the other hand few which so happily exhibit the solace afforded in some instances by literary pursuits. Cynthia Taggart was the daughter of an old soldier of the Revolution. His father at the outset of the contest was possessed of a valuable farm at Middletown, six miles from Newport. During the British occupation of the neighborhood, he joined an expedition for the capture of the island. It was unsuccessful, and the British in revenge devastated his property. In the foray the son, afterwards the father of Cynthia, was taken prisoner and imprisoned at Newport jail. After a fortnight's incarceration, he made his escape through one of the cellar windows which were provided with wooden bars only, and getting clear of the town crossed to the mainland at Bristol ferry during the night on a rude raft formed of rails from the fences.

A like fate occurred to a small confiscated estate which was given to the father in consideration of his services and losses by the American authorities, so that the son, on the death of the father, succeeded to but a slender patrimony.

C-Taggart

His daughter, Cynthia Taggart, was born Octeber 14, 1801. Owing to the humble, almost necessitous circunstances of the family, her educational advantages were confined to the instructions of the village school, and from these, owing to early ill health, she could only now and then profit. Although sickly from her birth, she enjoyed occasional intervals of health until her nineteenth year. The painful record of her subsequent career may be best left to her own simple recital.

Shortly after this period, I was seized with a more serious and alarming illness, than any with which I had hitherto been exercised, and in the progress of which my life was for many weeks despaired of. But after my being reduced to the brink of the grave, and enduring excruciating pain and excessive weakness for more than three months, it yielded to su perior medical skill; and I so far recovered strength as to walk a few steps and frequently to ride abroad, though not without a great increase of pain an almost maddening agony of the brain, aud a total deprivation of sleep for three or four nights and days successively.

From this time a complication of the most painful and debilitating chronic diseases ensued, and have continued to prey upon my frail system during the subsequent period of my life,-from which no permanent relief could be obtained, either through medicine or the most judicious regimen,-natural sleep having been withheld to an almost if not altogether unparalleled degree, from the first serious illness throughout the twelve subsequent years. This unnatural deprivation has caused the greatest debility, and an agonizing painfulness and susceptibility of the whole system, which I think can neither be described nor conceived. After the expiration of a little more than three years from the above men tioned illness, the greater part of which period I was

able to sit up two or three hours in a day, and frequently rode, supported in a carriage, a short distance, though, as before observed, not without great increase of pain, and a total watchfulness for many succeeding nights,-I was again attacked with a still more acutely painful and dangerous malady, from which recovery for several weeks seemed highly improbable, when this most alarming complaint again yielded to medical skill, and life continued, though strength has never more returned. And in what agony, in what excruciating tortures and restless la guishing the greater part of the last nine years has been past, it is believed by my parents that language is inadequate to describe or the human mind to conceive. During both the former and latter period of these long-protracted and uncompromising diseases, every expedient that has been resorted to, with the blissful hope of recovery, has proved, not only ineffectual to produce the desired result, but has, invariably, greatly aggravated and increased my complicated complaints; from which it has been impossible to obtain the smallest degree of relief that could render life supportable, and preserve the scorching brain from phrensy, without the constant use of the most powerful anodynes.

Under these circumstances a number of poems were composed by her, and dictated to her father and sisters. One or two found their way to the Providence newspapers, others were read in manuscript by the physicians and clergyman who benevolently visited the poor invalid, and a small collection was finally published in 1833.

The pieces it contains are all of a melancholy cast. They are the meditations of the sick bed, unrelieved by any hope of recovery, the yearnings of a lover of nature for the liberty of woods and fields, of an active mind for food for thought. Considering the circumstances under which they were written they are noticeable productions.

The author lingered for several years after the publication of her volume, without any respite from illness until her death, on the twenty-third of March, 1849.

ON THE RETURN OF SPRING. 1825.
In vain, alas! are Nature's charms
To those whom sorrows share,
In vain the budding flowers appear
To misery's hopeless heir.

In vain, the glorious sun adorns

And gladdens the lengthened day,
When grief must share the tedious hours
That pass in long array;—

When stern disease with blighting power
Has nipt life's transient bloom,
And long incessant agonies
Unrespited consume.

How lost the glow that pleasure thrilled
Once through the raptured breast,
When, bright in every blooming sweet,
This beauteous earth was drest!
No joyous walk through flowery fields
Shall e'er again delight;
For sorrow veils those pleasing scenes
In deepest shades of night.

Now, worn with pain, oppressed with grief,
To wretchedness a prey,

The night returns, and day succeeds,
Without a cheering ray.

VOL. II.-23

The room, with darkened windows sad,
A dungeon's semblance bears,—
And all about the silent bed
The face of misery wears:

Shut out from Nature's beauteous charms,
And breath of balmy air,

Ah! what can chase the hopeless gloom, But Heaven,-but humble prayer!

ON A STORM. 1825.

The harsh, terrific, howling Storm,
With its wild, dreadful, dire alarm,

Turns pale the cheek of mirth;
And low it bows the lofty trees,
And their tall branches bend with ease
To kiss their parent earth.
The rain and hail in torrents pour;
The furious winds impetuous roar,—
In hollow murmurs clash.
The shore adjacent joins the sound
And angry surges deep resound,

And foaming billows dash.
Yet ocean doth no fear impart,
But soothes my anguish-swollen heart,
And calms my feverish brain.
It seems a sympathizing friend,
That doth with mine its troubles blend,
To mitigate my pain.

In all the varying shades of woe,
The night relief did ne'er bestow,

Nor have I respite seen;

Then welcome, Storm, loud, wild, and rude,
To me thou art more kind and good,
Than aught that is serene.

RUFUS DAWES.

THOMAS, the father of Rufus Dawes, and a Judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, was born in Boston in 1757, and died in July, 1825. He was the author of a poem entitled The Law given on Mount Sinai, published in Boston, in 1777, in a pamphlet.

Rufus Dawes, the youngest but one of a large family of sixteen, was born at Boston, January 26, 1803. He entered Harvard in 1820, but was refused a degree, in consequence of his supposed participation in a disturbance of the discipline of the institution, a charge afterwards found to be unjust. The incident furnished the occasion of his first published poem, a satire on the Harvard faculty. Mr. Dawes next studied law, was admitted, but never practised the profession. He. contributed to the United States Literary Gazette,. published at Cambridge, and conducted for a time at Baltimore, The Emerald, also a weekly paper. In 1830, he published The Valley of the Nash-away and Other Poems, and in 1839, Geraldine, Athenia of Damascus, and Miscellaneous Poems.

Mr. Dawes's chief poem, Geraldine, is a rambling composition of some three hundred and fifty stanzas, in the manner of Don Juan, and contains a series of episodical passages united by a somewhat extravagant plot. The tragedy is occupied with the siege of Damascus A. D. 634. Athenia, a noble lady, is beloved by Calous, the general in command of the city during the siege by the Turks. The latter, well nigh victorious, are about entering Damascus, when Calous re

Griswold's Poets of America, p. 268..

ceives private intelligence that succor will arrive on the morrow. To prevent the entrance of the Turks he feigns desertion, is thus received into the camp of the enemy, and promising to betray the city, gains a day's delay. At the expiration of that interval, he enters with the Turkish leader, and then cutting his way through the hostile troops, rejoins his own forces, and succeeds in arresting their flight. He next meets Athenia, and presses his suit, but she, believing him a traitor, stabs him fatally. Her father enters and undeceives her. Meanwhile the expected reinforcement having been defeated, the Turks succeed, and the piece concludes with the death of Athenia, who falls beside her lover's body on the entrance of the victors. The language of the drama is smooth and elegant.

The miscellaneous poems which follow in the volume comprise descriptions of natural scenery, passages of reflection, several songs, an ode on the death of Sir Walter Scott, and similar compositions sung at the celebration of laying the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill monument, and at a Printers' Celebration, at Baltimore. 1840, Mr. Dawes published Nix's Mate, a spirited and successful historical romance.

Rufees Dowves

SUNRISE FROM MOUNT WASHINGTON.

In

The laughing hours have chased away the night, Plucking the stars out from her diadem:And now the blue-eyed Morn, with modest grace, Looks through her half-drawn curtains in the east, Blushing in smiles and glad as infancy. And see, the foolish Moon, but now so vain Of borrowed beauty, how she yields her charms, And, pale with envy, steals herself away! The clouds have put their gorgeous livery on, Attendant on the day-the mountain tops Have lit their beacons, and the vales below Send up a welcoming;-no song of birds, Warbling to charm the air with melody, Floats on the frosty breeze; yet Nature hath The very soul of music in her looks! The sunshine and the shade of poetry.

I stand upon thy lofty pinnacle, Temple of Nature! and look down with awe On the wide world beneath us, dimly seen! Around me crowd the giant sons of earth, Fixed on their old foundations, unsubdued; Firm as when first rebellion bade them rise Unrifted to the Thunderer-now they seem A family of mountains, clustering round Their hoary patriarch, emulously watching To meet the partial glances of the day. Far in the glowing east the flickering light, Mellowed by distance with the blue sky blending, Questions the eye with ever-varying forms.

The sun comes up! away the shadows fling From the broad hills-and, hurrying to the West, Sport in the sunshine, till they die away. The many beauteous mountain streams leap dow Out-welling from the clouds, and sparkling light Dances along with their perennial flow. And there is beauty in yon river's path, The glad Connecticut! I know her well, By the white veil she mantles o'er her charms: At times, she loiters by a ridge of hills,

Sportfully hiding-then again with glee,
Out-rushes from her wild-wood lurking place,
Far as the eye can bound, the ocean-waves,
And hills and rivers, mountains, lakes and woods,
And all that hold the faculty entranced,
Bathed in a flood of glory, float in air,
And sleep in the deep quietude of joy.

There is an awful stillness in this place,
A Presence, that forbids to break the spell,
Till the heart pour its agony in tears.
But I must drink the vision while it lasts;
For even now the curling vapours rise,
Wreathing their cloudy coronals, to grace
These towering summits-bidding me away;-
But often shall my heart turn back again,
Thou glorious eminence! and when oppressed,
And aching with the coldness of the world,
Find a sweet resting-place and home with thee.

JACOB ABBOTT JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.

JACOB ABBOTT, who has acquired a high reputation as the author of a variety of works having for their object the moral and religious training, and the intellectual instruction of the young, is a native of Maine, where he was born at Hallowell in 1803. He was educated at Bowdoin, and at the Theological Seminary of Andover. He commenced

Jenol Abbott

his career as a writer with the books known as the "Young Christian" series, the first of which, bearing that title, appeared in Boston in 1825. It was followed in the series by three other volumes-The Corner Stone; The Way to

8

do Good; Hoaryhead and McDonner. When these were completed, in 1830 Mr. Abbott commenced the Rollo series of juvenile writings, which reached twenty-four volumes, consisting of the Rollo Books in fourteen volumes, the Lucy Books in six, and the Jonas Books in four. The Marco Paul series followed in six volumes, and subsequently the Franconia Stories, published in New York, in ten volumes. A series of Illustrated Histories, to extend to some thirty volumes, was commenced with such ancient topics as Cyrus the Great, Xerxes, Romulus, Julius Cæsar, and including several from English history as Alfred the Great, William the Conqueror, Queen Elizabeth. These and others have appeared in rapid succession from the press of the Harpers, tastefully printed, and with the particular topic attractively set forth in a fluent, easy narrative. A new juvenile series of Harper's Story Books is still in progress, in monthly volumes. Mr. Abbott has great skill as a story-teller for the young. He avoids particularly all ambiguity and obscurity. His page is neither encumbered by superfluous matter, nor deficient in the necessary fulness of explanation.

JOHN S. C. ABBOTT, brother of the preceding, a graduate of Bowdoin (of 1825), and a Congregational clergyman, is also a writer for the young. He is the author of the series of Kings and Queens, or Life in the Palace, published by the Harpers, which is to include Josephine, Maria Louisa, Louis Philippe, Nicholas, Victoria, and other popular personages. He has written in a similar form brief lives of Josephine, Maria Antoinette, and Madame Roland. He is best known, however, by

W. Herbert, and subsequently by Mr. Park Benjamin, the brilliant sporting sketches, full of dramatic life and rollicking fun, the Fire Island Ana, or a Week at the Fire Islands; several legends of Long Island wreckers and pirates; and the fine-hearted, humorous essay on some of the changes in the church-going associations of New York, a sketch worthy the genius of Charles Lamb, entitled Hymn Tunes and Grave Yards. To the Spirit of the Times and Turf Register, he contributed frequently, taking the signature of "Cypress, Jr.," a sure indication to the reader of a pleasant, ingenious vein of speculation on the favorite topics of the sportsman, mingled with personal humors of the writer's own. His Classic Rhapsodies, Random Reminiscences of his schoolfellows, and other miscellanies, were all in mirth and good feeling. In his Bank Melodies he ventured a set of poetical parodies on the politicians of the day, somewhat in the style of the Croakers. His pen was often employed on political topics.

A collection of Hawes's writings was published in 1812, shortly after his death; two genial volumes, Sporting Scenes, and Sundry Sketches, being the Miscellaneous Writings of J. Cypress, Jr., edited with a preliminary memoir by the author's friend, Mr. Henry William Herbert, a tribute warm, kindly, appreciative, such as one true disciple of Izaak Walton should render to another.

SOME OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING QUAIL.

October has arrived, and has entered into the kingdom prepared for him by his summery brethren departed. A kingdom, truly, within a republic, but mild, magnificent, pro bono publico, and full of good fruits; so that not a democrat, after strictest set of St. Tammany, but bows the knee. Hail! O king! His ac

in Harpers' Magazine, 1852-1854, and reissued in two octavo volumes in 1855. This is written in a popularly attractive style, with much success as a narrative; while it has provoked considerable opposition by its highly eulogistic view of the character and deeds of its subject.

WILLIAM POST HAWES,

AN essayist of an original sentiment and talent at description, was the son of Peter Hawes, a member of the bar in New York, and was born in that city February 4, 1803. He was educated at Columbia College, where he received his degree in 1821, when he became a student in the law-office of Mr. John Anthon,* and a practitioner after the usual course of three years' study. He thenceforth devoted himself with success to his profession till his early death.

The writings of Mr. Hawes consisted of several series of fugitive articles and essays, contributed to the newspapers, weekly periodicals, and magazines of the day. He wrote for the New York Mirror on Quail, and other matters; for the American Monthly Magazine, conducted by Mr. H.

Mr. Anthon is an eminent practitioner at the bar, a good scholar, and a man of general reading, sharing in the literary activities of his brothers, Professor Charles Anthon of Columbia College, and the Rev. Dr. Henry Anthon, the Rector of St. Mark's Church in New York. Mr. John Anthon is the author of a volume of Reports of Cases determined at Nisi Prius in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, 1820," and of "An Analytical Abridgment of the Commentaries of Blackstone," with a prefatory "Essay on the Study of the Law."

the woods and fields, and on the hill sides, painting the mountains and arching the streams with glories copied from the latest fashion of rainbows. Ilis keen morning winds and cool evening moons, assiduous servants, are dropping diamonds upon the fading grass and tree-tops, and are driving in the feathery tenants of his marshes, bays, and brakes. Thrice happy land and water lord! See how they streak the early sky, piercing the heavy clouds with the accurate wedge of their marshalled cohorts, shouting paans as they go-and how they plunge into well remembered waters, with an exulting sound, drinking in rest and hearty breakfasts! These be seges

of herons, herds of cranes, droppings of sheldrakes, springs of teals, trips of wigeons, coverts of cootes, gaggles of geese, sutes of mallards, and badelynges of ducks; all of which the profane and uninitiated, miserable herd, call flocks of fowl, not knowing discrimination! Meadow and upland are made harmonious and beautiful with congregations of plovers, flights of doves, walks of snipes, exaltations of larks, coveys of partridges, and bevies of quail. For all these vouchsafed comforts may we be duly grateful! but chiefly, thou sun-burned, frost-browed monarch, do we thank thee that thou especially bringest to vigorous maturity and swift strength, our own bird of our heart, our family chicken, tetrao coturnix.

The quail is peculiarly a domestic bird, and is attached to his birth-place and the home of his forefathers. The various members of the anatic families educate their children in the cool summer of the far north, and bathe their warm bosoms in July in the iced

Stow. Stripe. Hakewell.