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the British fleet and the army in New York. On the opening of the campaign of 1779, he was ordered to take post at Pompton with the Virginia division, and cover the country towards the Hudson. Major Henry Lee, who, with his light horse, formed part of the command, was stationed in advance to watch the motions of the enemy. Having learned that their advanced party at Paulus Hook was remiss in keeping guard, Major Lee formed a project of surprising it. His suggestion being approved by Washington, Stirling furnished him with the necessary force, and took part in person with a strong detachment to cover his retreat. The enterprise was carried through with great spirit, and was entirely successful, the British post being surprised, and one hundred and fifty men taken prisoners. For the part which Stirling took in this affair, he received the thanks of Washington and of Congress.

The main body of the army having gone into winterquarters at Morristown, Washington detached Stirling with two thousand men to attempt carrying the British posts on Staten Island. The troops moved rapidly forward on sleds, and having crossed the inlet on the ice, Stirling detached Colonel Willet to attack a British regiment at Decker's, whilst he proceeded with the remainder to the wateringplace, where the main body of the enemy lay. Notwithstanding the precautions that had been taken, and the great despatch with which the assailants had moved, the spies of the enemy had gained intelligence, and the British troops were all within their works, prepared for resistance. The projected surprise having thus failed, the works being too strong to be carried by assault, and the communication, moreover, with New York being unexpectedly found open, by which the British could be reinforced, the attack was necessarily abandoned. Some skirmishing took place in the retreat, a charge on the rear from the enemy's cavalry was repulsed, and a few prisoners were brought off by the Americans.

The campaign of 1780 was not fruitful of any important events in the northern part of the United States, where Stirling was employed. Projects were entertained for the recovery of New York, with the assistance of the French, who had now engaged actively in our behalf; but on account of the delay in waiting for our allies, the plans for this purpose were not carried into effect. In 1781, Stirling was or

dered to Albany, to take the chief command of the Northern army collecting there, to resist another invasion from Canada under St. Leger. He had under his orders Brigadier-Generals Stark, Van Rensselaer, Gansevoort, and Enos, with a small body of regular troops, and militia from New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire. He collected the main body of his army at Saratoga, and made the most judicious arrangements to maintain the favorable omen of a battle-field already consecrated by victory.

Soon after his arrangements were completed, he had the satisfaction of announcing to his troops the complete triumph of our arms at Yorktown. This decisive event, with the approach of winter, doubtless put an end to the projected expedition of St. Leger. Stirling soon after dismissed the militia to their homes, and transferred his head-quarters to Albany. A scheme was formed for a winter's expedition, moving the troops in sleds over the snow, to reduce St. John's, Chamblee, and Montreal; but it was deemed advisable to remain on the defensive in this quarter, and the project was not prosecuted.

Stirling now resumed the command in New Jersey, and in January, 1782, he repaired to Philadelphia, which was within his military command, and established his headquarters there for the winter. In the spring of the following year, he was appointed, with the adjutant-general of the army and another officer, on a commission to settle the rank of the subalterns of the Connecticut line; and he proceeded for that purpose to Fishkill, where those troops were encamped. This service being accomplished, he was again ordered to command the Northern department, and established his headquarters at Albany. There were rumors again of a contemplated expedition from Canada, to join an army of the enemy from New York, and effect the long meditated junction by the Hudson river and the Lakes; but no real movement was made towards this object, and Stirling had only to remain on the watch, and use every effort to keep himself well informed of the intentions of the enemy.

Whilst thus engaged in the service of his country, his useful and honorable career was suddenly brought to a close. "The fatigue of body and mind to which he had been subjected during his command on an important and exposed frontier, superadded to the hard service and constant exposure

he had undergone from the commencemeut of the war, brought on a violent attack of the gout, which soon proved fatal. He died at Albany, on the 15th of January, 1783, in the fifty-seventh year of his age," within a week of the day on which the independence of his country was solemnly recognized by treaty.

"He was buried in the vault of his wife's ancestors, within the walls of the ancient Dutch church in that city; and when that venerable edifice was demolished, his bones were removed to the cemetery belonging to the Protestant Episcopal Church, of which he was a member. His funeral was solemnized with the military observances appropriate to his rank, and the religious rites of his communion; and the ceremonies of the occasion are still remembered by the elder inhabitants of that city, as a spectacle of extraordinary interest and solemnity. He left a widow and two daughters; Mary, the elder, married to Robert Watts; Catharine, the younger, to Colonel William Duer.

"The death of Lord Stirling was lamented by his brother offi cers, and the troops he had commanded, [embracing every brig ade in the American army, except those of South Carolina and Georgia,] as well as by his personal friends. He was regretted, indeed, by all, both in military and civil life, who knew him either in his public capacity or private relations; by many also, who, without knowing him personally, were aware of the loss the public cause had sustained in being deprived of the influence of his character and the benefit of his services."

From what we have thus gleaned from the work before us, it is apparent that Stirling was among the foremost of those to whom we are indebted for the priceless blessings and the daily increasing national greatness that we enjoy. When these States were colonies, we have seen him with patriotic foresight endeavouring to foster their growth by enlightened suggestions to their rulers in the mother country; by advice to his neighbours, and by example, extending the number of objects of agricultural cultivation, and exploring and developing our mineral wealth; with enlightened benevolence aiding to found a library for the diffusion of knowledge among the inhabitants of his native city, and fostering in its infancy an institution of learning, which has sent forth so many youth fitted for a career of usefulness and honor.

An ardent lover of his country and of her liberties, we find him strenuously opposing the earliest attempts to assail

them. The Stamp Act, and the act to lay duties at our seaports without our consent, found in him an equally inflexible opponent. When humble and loyal prayers to a stubborn king and an equally obstinate Parliament failed in obtaining redress, he encouraged the combinations that rendered these attempts at taxation nugatory. And when, at length, an attempt was made to crush all opposition by a large and welldisciplined army, he was among the first to take up arms, and never relinquished them until he died, on the eve of his country's emancipation. In the naval expedition against the king's transport off Sandy Hook, he first displayed his zeal and enterprise; in the battle of Long Island, where he sacrificed himself with a small portion of his troops to secure the safety of the remainder, at Middlebrook, at the Brandywine, at Germantown, and at Monmouth, he met in arms the invaders of his country, and in most of these bloody fields found occasion to signalize the obstinate courage and constancy which were his distinguishing characteristics. From August, 1775, when he first took up arms in New Jersey, until his decease, in January, 1783, he was unremittingly engaged in active service. In the midst of all the discouragements that attended his country's struggle for liberty, from her weak and inefficient confederation, depending for the fulfilment of its pledges on thirteen distinct sovereignties, from her ruined finances, depreciated currency, her starving and half-naked soldiery, rendered mutinous by the penury, and sometimes by the neglect, of Congress, he never despaired of the republic. And so he persevered until death, to the ruin of his private fortune, and with equal disregard of that rank in the mother country, and of the large territorial claims attached to it, which a contrary course would have established; an honorable example of a man counting nothing of value in comparison with the sacred maintenance of his principles, and sinking every selfish consideration in the one strong and controlling feeling of an ardent patriotism.

J. R. Lowell.

ART. VIII. The New Timon, a Romance of London. First American from the Third London Edition. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart. 1846. 12mo. pp. 208.

FLETCHER of Saltoun's apothegm would hardly answer for our latitude; song has no super-legislative force among us. The walls of one of our great political parties were thought to have risen from their ruins a few years ago, like those of Thebes, to the sound of singing; but this Amphionic masonwork was found not to resist our changeful climate. Our national melodies are of African descent. If our brains be stolen, it will never be through our ears; the Sirens had sung in vain to a Nantucket Ulysses. We remember a nomadic minstrel, a dweller in tents, who picked up a scanty subsistence by singing "Proud Dacre sailed the sea," and "The Hunters of Kentucky," on election days, and at Commencements and musters. But he was merely the satellite to a dwarf, and the want of the aspirate betrayed a Transatlantic origin. Moreover, only slender-witted persons were betrayed into the extravagance of the initiatory ninepence, the shrewder citizens contenting themselves with what gratuitous music leaked through the rents in the canvas.

Mr. Barlow, we believe, had a beatific vision of the nine immigrant Muses, somewhere on the top of the Alleghany mountains. A judicious selection of place; -for only in some such inaccessible spot would they be safe from the constable. Without question, a ship's captain importing nine ladies with so scanty a wardrobe would be compelled to give bonds. With us the bard has no chartered sacredness; cotton and the stocks refuse to budge at his vaticinations. The newspapers are our Westminster Abbey, in whose Poets' Corner the fugitive remains of our verse-makers slumber inviolate, — a sacred privacy, uninvaded save by the factory-girl or the seamstress. The price-current is our Paradise of Daintie Devyces; and that necromancer, who might fill his pockets by contracting to bring back Captain Kidd to tell us where he buried treasure, would starve, were he to promise merely

"To call up him who left half told

The story of Cambuscan bold."

It is not that we are an antipoetical people. Our sur

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