SOUNDS AT SEA. THE weary sea is tranquil, and the breeze The regular tread of him whose skill presides Float o'er the conscious sea! The scene and hour Literary Leaves, by D. L. Richardson. They farther add, that the rainbow received equal damage with the more durable material, and being shattered to pieces, the fragments were mingled with the fountain, and caused the prismatic colors which, though brought out by the sun, are ever resident in the translucent body of the fountain; and the tints of the rainbow were blent with the wave. Both town and fountain are now abandoned to the aborigines, the war with Mexico having so weakened the resources of the government as to render them incapable of defending their infant capital from the assaults of the Indian marauder. American understands politics, takes a lively interest in them, (though many abstain, under discour agement or disgust, from taking a practical part,) and is familiar not only with the affairs of his own township or county, but with those of the state and of the union; almost every man reads about a dozen newspapers every day, and will talk to you for hours, if you will listen to him, about the tariff, and the bank, and the Ashburton treaty. Now, anywhere else the result of all this would be the neglect of private business; not so here; an American seems to have time not only for his own affairs, but for those of the commonwealth, and to find it easy to reconcile the apparently inconsistent pursuits of a bustling politician and a steady man of business. Such a union is rarely to be met with in England-never on the continent.—Godley's Letters from America. ANGLO-AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE.-Their ships sail better, and are worked by fewer men; their settlers pay more for their land than our colonists, and yet undersell them in their own markets. Wherever administrative talent is called into play, whether in the management of a hotel, or a ship, or a prison, or a factory, there is no competing with them; and, after a little intercourse with them, I was not surprised that it should be so, for the more I travelled through the country, the more was I struck with the remarkable average intelligence which prevails. I never met a stupid American; I never met one man from whose conCURIOUS INDIAN TRADITION.-Some two hun-versation much information might not be gained, dred miles in the interior of the republic of Texas, or who did not appear familiar with life and where the flat interminable prairies have ceased, business, and qualified to make his way in them. the rolling country has commenced, and the ever-There is one singular proof of the general energy green summits of the verdant and flowery hills are and capacity for business which early habits of in sight, was built not long since, on the very skirt self-dependence have produced. Almost every of the territory of the fiercest and most turbulent Indian tribes, a small town, to which the name of Austin was given. For its healthy locality it was selected as the seat of government of the republic, and it gave every prospect of becoming one of the most populous and active, as it is the most lovely city in this exceedingly picturesque and beautiful country. Situated in a gently sloping valley on the banks of the wild Colerado, just below the cataracts, and surrounded on all sides by groves of trees, green hillocks, and sparkling fountains, it lies in quiet seclusion, almost hid from the sight of the passing stranger. In fact, the only object to be seen at a distance is the president's house, a white neat building on the top of a little hill. Not far from the town, gushing from the broad fissure in the rocky base of a hill, and falling into a deep natural basin, almost like a well, is a pure and delicious fountain, known as Barton's Spring. Perhaps no water was ever more truly cool and refreshing. Surrounded on all sides by rocks or lofty trees, interminable groves of which branch off on three sides, it does not feel the effect of the sun's rays but during a very short period of the afternoon, when, through a large opening between certain lofty and stately cedars, the beams of the great luminary fall upon the spring, and gild its sparkling and virgin waters with every tint of the rainbow. This lasts during about three quarters of an hour, when the sun sinking still lower, its rays are utterly concealed from the fall. This has given rise to a most curious and characteristic superstition on the part of the many tribes of Indians who at different times have camped near the spring. In ages gone by, say they, during a severe and terrible storm, of which they profess merely to hand down the tradition, a more than usually gorgeous rainbow was driven along with such force against the base of the hill from whence the spring gushes, as to shiver the rocks, and give place unto the water which instantly welled forth. QUICKSILVER FROM CHINA.-This metal, so extensively employed in medicine, in the amalgamation of the noble metals, in water-gilding, the making of vermilion, the silvering of looking-glasses, the filling of barometer and thermometer tubes, &c., has hitherto been imported chiefly from Spain, Germany, and Peru. Now, however, there is a prospect of its being obtained from China, some of the provinces of which have been long known to yield it in considerable abundance. One of the main novelties in the Chinese import consists in the mode of package, the metal being simply poured into a piece of bamboo, about a foot long and three inches thick, having each end firmly closed with rosin. This rude form of package is found quite as serviceable as the iron bottle in which mercury is usually brought, while it is lighter, and in every way more convenient for shipment. Specimens were recently shown in the London market; and from the remunerating prices which they brought, it is expected that renewed shipments of the article to Europe will take place on an extensive scale. From Tait's Magazine. men at the gate of the Zoological Gardens, of a Sunday, to hold your horse. Such, however, is the wisdom of the West. A gentleman, like a poet, must be ready made. He must have been born AN action was tried at the last Galway Assizes, with a silver fork in his mouth; no matter whethwhich turned upon this question-what is a gen-er he picks his teeth with it afterwards when he tleman? Mr. Kelly, the plaintiff, claimed a racing- grows up to be a man, or melts it down into a pewcup and stakes, which Mr. Younge, the defendant, ter spoon, he is still a gentleman all the same. He refused to give up, on the ground that he, Mr.is of "the ould stock," inoculate it as he will. Kelly, was no gentleman; and thereupon issue was joined. It was a condition of the race, that the horses should be ridden by gentlemen; and the judge, a Mr. Augustus Moore, (not Judge Moore, however,) had awarded the prize to Mr. Younge, a subaltern in a marching regiment quartered at Athlone, in preference to Mr. Kelly, the rider of the foremost horse. This was a pretty case for a Galway jury to try; for the whole Clan Kelly were standing by to see fair play. The celebrated Mr. Fitzgibbon was the advocate of the exclusive party, and he labored hard to break down Mr. Kelly's right to become a competitor in such a contest. For this purpose, witnesses were examined, who proved that Lady Clanricarde did not visit Mrs. Kelly, though sometimes sojourning within a morning's call; and consequently it was contended, that Mr. Kelly could not, with any proper degree of modesty, presume to weigh himself in the same scales with a Lieutenant of her Majesty's Fifty-fourth Regiment of Foot. No overgrowth of moss or rubbish can obliterate his innate quality. Thus, while the seals and the ermine cannot communicate this thorough-bred nature, many an "old coat" with its "becoming" appurtenants, cover a rale jintleman. The respectful pity with which one of those relics of former greatness is regarded by the common people, is a generous trait in the Irish character. It proceeds, indeed, from that mischievous grandee-worship which was once our national idolatry, and with which we are still strongly imbued. But it is an amiable sentiment, when the object to whom we bow the knee is in distress; and if, notwithstanding his fallen fortunes, he preserves the feelings and carriage of a true gentleman, there is something deeply affecting in the deference which his presence still inspires. But it more frequently happens that the brokendown Hidalgo is a worthless and unprincipled fellow; and in that case, the respect which he commands seems like a biting satire upon his whole class and race. "Masthur John is a genOn the other hand, it was submitted, that if tleman born: he promises all, and he pays none. none were to be reputed in the rank of gentlemen, Such was the justification, offered in sober sadwhose wives had not been visited by Lady Clanri-ness, of the swindling practices of one of the greatcarde, the notion of a Corinthian Race might as est liars and rascals in the province, by a man who well be given up at once, within twenty miles all had suffered by his knavery. round Portumna castle. It would amount, in fact, to a disgentilizing of two or three counties. This leads me to another distinctive feature of The Gentleman, as that character is understood in A good deal of curious discussion was entered many parts of Ireland. He must possess the upon about the "twelve tribes" in general, and ability of getting into debt. "He a gentleman!" about the Kellys in particular. The latter occupy said one of the Five Bloods, in whose presence a proud page in Mr. Burke's standard work upon some exact man of payments was named with the "Landed Gentry," a book of infallible author-honor; 66 why, the fellow never owed a hundred ity, inasmuch as every gentleman whom it pounds in his life!" This "in your duller Britain " celebrates, sounds his own trumpet, having (as may be thought a laughable test of the nobler the one who has the best right to know) supplied, metals of society. But when it seems to be conat the request of the learned compiler, the pedi-sidered a duty which a man owes to his lineage, gree and list of cousins which "Show how he's greatly allied." Now, as I have said, the Kellys are there, but the Younges are not. This, with sundry other good and sufficient causes, being shown why Mr. Kelly might ride pari passu with a Lieutenant of Foot, a verdict was given in his favor; and he left the court in great triumph with his cup, but as for the stakes, they were little enough for the lawyers. Of the notions which still prevail on the question of gentility, a curious instance was elicited upon this trial. A witness for the lieutenant declared, upon his solemn oath, that he did not consider the Lord Chancellor of Ireland to be a gentleman: not that he could allege aught to the disparagement of that eminent personage's character or demeanor. On such points, everybody allows him to be beyond exception. But because he had raised himself from an humble, though an honest, condition to the head of his noble profession, Sir Edward Sugden is no gentleman. to live beyond his means, (an Irish way, you will The late Lord C. was a finished gentleman, in this sense of the word, and, indeed, in another sense too. For many years before his exit, he owed more than the fee and inheritance of all his demesnes could have been sold for to the highest bidder. Yet he managed to rub on, under the prestige of a title, and to fare sumptuously to the last. I believe they found it hard enough to bury him though, the undertaker being a morose fellow, and refusing to take his lordship's word for the price of the coffin. But up to that time, he wanted nothing that luxury could demand. Some familiar friends, seated round his festive board, ventured once, while the claret was going round, to remonstrate against such extravagance. But, oh! the cut of an aristocrat, who saidnay, swore, that! Gentle reader, you would scarcely pick him out of a knot of walking gentle- Windsor. Vide Sir Hugh Evans in The Merry Wives of They wanted, they said, no costly wines to lure | general appellation of assistant. An usher, by them to his table, but would be perfectly satisfied confession, is now as rare as the title of apothecary with the vin du pays, the refined dew of his tribu-or butcher over a shop-door in the city of London. tary mountains. The latter are all victuallers and chymists; and the usher takes refuge from the obloquy of his calling in a participle. "I know all that, my dear friends," said the worthy peer; "and nothing would delight me more than to regale you with whisky-punch, if I could; but, then, consider the expense of it." "The expense!" cried the astonished guests, holding up their bumpers of Chateau Margaux. "Yes, the expense. Where are the lemons to come from? Ready money for lemons would break me. Another necessary test of a gentleman is, that of being fit to be shot at from a pistol at twelve paces. That he be willing to fight upon worthy provocation, is something; but it is not enough; many are ambitious of that honor without being privileged to enjoy it. They must be meet to be met before they can demand a meeting. 66 But, on the other hand, it will not do to be too nice on points of heraldry, if a challenge has been provoked. Old Grattan's answer to those friends who chid him for condescending to fight with Gifford, the Thersites of the Dublin Corporation, breathes the true spirit of ancient chivalry; "I never insulted any man I would not fight." So, more recently, that Cock of the North, the Father of the North East Bar, being aggrieved by the attacks of a Dublin paper, made inquiries about the editor; and having found that he was enough of a gentleman for his purpose,' sent a friend to request his attendance in the Phoenix Park. Strange enough, that friend, the hostile messenger, was the same Mr. Fitzgibbon already mentioned, and who, on a late occasion, so very properly declined a similar invitation. 66 It may be doubted, however, if the condition of a private tutor in a gentleman's family be not still more deplorable. Snubbed in the parlor, flouted by the kitchen, laughed at by his pupils, cut dead by the young ladies, and the butt of perpetual side-wind rebuffs and admonitions from their mamma, he is yet a happy man if, on settling day, he be not cheated of half his stipulated and hardearned stipend, by the respectable head of the house. The dancing-master-that welcome and privileged buffoon-assumes a condescending air in speaking to him; and even the itinerant hairdresser looks at him with an outrageous eve of commiseration, as who should say, "Poor fellow, I feel for you.' If, in addition to all these, there be an old maiden aunt in the circle, then is the tutor's cup of bliss brimful. For she will either insult him hourly in terms of bitter contempt, or else she will make love to him and whether she falls upon him as a biting Scylla, or as a devouring Charybdis, 't is alike uncomfortable. Even the country people regard the profession of a teacher, in any branch of knowledge, with undissembled scorn. In their opinion, a gentleman "demanes" himself by accepting the highest endowment connected with education. When an Irish lady of high birth married the head-master of Harrow School, the disgrace was acutely felt by many a dependent crone, who would have illuminated her wigwam with pride had the bridegroom been Lord William Paget. "An ould schoolmasther," as they were pleased to designate the object of her choice, was such a yokefellow as they could scarcely tolerate for a child of their own; but to think of such a match for a daughter of a noble house was beyond all Irish patience. The world, however, is growing wiser, and more moral, on this subject every day. Mr. Fitzgibbon has not lowered himself in the social scale by rejecting the mad cartel of the Attorney-general; nor does Mr. Holmes, I am sure, now consider the editor of the Pilot less of a gentleman, because he did not answer his call to the Fifteen Acres. It The contempt of men who live by their learning would be much better, to be sure, if those who will sometimes shows itself in a ludicrous manner. not fight, would refrain their lips from abusive or The late Mr. S-, a fellow of the University, irritating language. But abuse without homicide who thought no small beer of himself, had the is not so infamous as when it is "overlaced with mortification to see his partner in a quadrille the blood" of the injured party. People are be-handed to her seat, in the middle of the set, by an ginning to understand this; and therefore the fighting test is looked upon as a rather equivocal mode of proving respectability. Still, however, its negative force remains. He who could not be shot with honor by a gentleman has no business to think of riding a race with one. But the Galway jury decided, totidem verbis, that it would be no disgrace to any gentleman to shoot Mr. Kelly; and consequently his character stands henceforth perfectly clear from all derogation. angry griffin of a mother, because, as she declared aloud, she "had no notion to permit one of her young leedies to stand wees-a-wee to a tuthorer of the college." There is but one palliative of these absurdities: they can rarely be attributed to ingratitude. Whether an attorney is a gentleman or not depends much upon the quality of his practice; not the moral quality, for that has nothing to say to the question; but the class of suitors he is emIt is a question undecided yet in the United ployed by, and the sort of business for which Kingdom, whether a gentleman can be engaged in they use him. If he be intrusted with the conthe business of education, either as a schoolmaster duct of equity suits, he is a gentleman by rank. or a private tutor. As for an usher, such a char- If he be a practitioner at common law, he is a genacter is not to be spoken of at all; much less tleman by courtesy. But if his business lie at spoken to. The memory of Eugene Aram is in- quarter-sessions, or on the crown side of assize famous more than that of any other murderer, courts, he is only a gentleman by act of Parliabecause he was an usher. It is considered more ment. Lord Anglesey, when he was Lord Lieureputable to break stones on the highway-side tenant, put the whole profession, as it is somethan to hammer the accidence, either Greek or Latin, into the heads of the rising generation. A riding-master is a prince to the usher of a school. The very name of the latter is so odious to ears polite, that it has been mystified under the more times proudly called, into the same sack, and ordered attorneys of all sorts to be shut out from the levees at the castle. But this was an invidious distinction to make, considering the indiscriminate nature of a gathering at the Irish court. The at torneys are not a fraternity to be easily discomfited | less, peradventure, it may be Dr. Gray of The or abashed. Erpellas furcâ,—you know the rest. Freeman's Journal) can boast an Alma Mater. They came to the castle, notwithstanding the pro- They are self-taught men; and to this day more hibition, with their wives and daughters; and the than one of the corps take a sort of pride in question of their admissibility was at length hap-"treading upon the Greek and Roman grammar." pily set at rest by a lord lieutenant marrying the daughter of one of them. One hears much of the "Gentlemen of the press,' and their "Fourth Estate;" which, however, not being an estate of inheritance, some have doubted if they be gentlemen at all. Their occupation certainly is not inconsistent with that character; and in every part of Europe, except Great Britain and Ireland, it is a passport into the very highest circles. Perhaps it may be, in some degree, their own fault that their company is not so highly prized or courted here. The French satirist has said I may tell you something more about that hereafter; but it is more pat to our present subject to affirm, which I do confidently, that "The Gentlemen of the Press" in Ireland are gentlemen, and that they have the means at their fingers'-ends, if they had but the will and the virtue, to raise themselves to a very high degree upon our social scale. We will pass now to a more ambitious class than any we have yet referred to among the great untitled. These I will take the liberty of naming the castellated gentry of Ireland. They reside in castles, or in houses contiguous to what are called castles; and, by means of that location, acquire for themselves, in the nomenclature of the country, C'est un mauvais metier, que celui de médire. a distinction almost baronial. For a gentleman The personalities in which their argument is too so situated has but to call his dwelling after his often lost and the small account they seem to set castle, and his castle after himself, and he at once by the plain truth, when the purpose of a party stands out the very head and front of his name, to cannot be served by it, have brought an honora-whom the whole tribe of synonymous mortals will ble calling into disrepute. Thus they degrade appear to do homage for the bread they eat and for themselves from the rank and dignity of censors, the air they breathe. who might command general respect, to that of lictors, prepared to execute the vengeance or gratify the malice of their patrons. But although writers for the daily press, of all political hues and complexions, are unhappily prone thus to pervert an engine which might be, in careful hands, inferior to the pulpit alone as an agent of moral and social improvement; they are as good gentlemen, if not better, than numbers of dainty and conceited prigs who affect to despise them. Your sçavant, who has once in a way been admitted to fill an unreadable corner of a review, tosses the head at a writer of paragraphs, just as Tommy Moore might be supposed to do (but would not do it) at a street ballad-singer. The barrister, of a term old, counts it a brighter thing to draw a declaration on a bill of exchange than to produce the leading article of The Times; and your guid Christian," though he will slip a sly paragraph, to answer his own ends, into the letter-box, scowls at an editor, like Jack Cade (the comparison is orthodox) frowning at the Clerk of Chatham. 66 unco Cobbett's sneering attacks upon "the Reporthers" tended much to prejudice the world against them; and, truth to say, the tribe who provoked his gall were a strange, impertinent, vulgar crew. They had a club at that time in London, which was hermetically sealed against such public writers as could not prove themselves gentlemen by the exhibition of a university degree. That stamp was indispensable to satisfy them that there could be any "gowd" in the man; though they should have known-none better-that it is often used to give currency to pinchback. Cobbett himself would have been blackballed had he sought admission amongst those "learned Thebans ;" and the great Captain (Sterling, I mean, not Wellington) would have fared no better. The graduate gentry, however, form a very small minority of the present effective force of our diurnal press. The leading journals of the [Irish] capital are in the hands of men, "most of whom, it is true, have had mothers," as Counsellor Tim Doolan said to a Cork jury,* but not one of them (un THE MARINER'S HYMN. MRS. SOUTHEY. LAUNCH thy bark, Mariner! Tempests will come; Breakers are round thee; "What of the night, watchman? No land yet-all's right." At an hour when all seemeth How gains the leak so fast? *"And, gentlemen," said Tim, deploying a very snuffy (after a pause of irresistible pathos,) most of you have handkerchief, "my client had a mother. Gentlemen- had mothers!" LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 14.-17 AUGUST, 1844. REVOLUTIONS IN HAYTI. From the Foreign Quarterly Review. I by its expansive energy, subdued the latter; and then, breaking its bounds, overran the island as far as Cape Samana, and united the whole under one government. Since then, a virtual despot, ruling 1. Colonies Etrangères et Hayti. Par V. SCHOELCHER. Paris. 1842. 2. Brief Notices of Hayti, with its Condition, Re-under the deceptive mask of a president, kept the sources, and Property. By JOHN CANDLER. London. 1842. 3. Le Manifeste, ler Mai, 1842-Avril 23, 1844. Published at Port-au-Prince, now Port Republicain. population in order, until the occurrence of events, long looked for by politicians, and fated to affect materially the destinies of Hayti, and perhaps of the whole West Indies. To unfold the causes of these events, we must THE history of Hayti, Hispaniola, or St. Do- look a little into the constitution of society in the mingo, is an epitome of that of America. It was island. The first feature that strikes us, is the the first island at which Christopher Columbus difference, the next the rivalry of races. Without landed. He was received by its hospitable inhab-seeking farther, this is the fertile source of dissenitants with kindness, which his successors repaid sion and misery. This it is that converts every civil by treachery and massacre, terminating in the total broil into a revolution, and makes every political destruction of the aboriginal population. A for- controversy a signal for massacre. The white eign race now took possession of the soil, intro-population in the French part has been long exducing a foreign religion and foreign manners, to terminated or driven out; but they left behind be modified and corrupted by the almost unavoida- them the mulattoes, or the browns, the mixed or ble influences of climate and circumstances. The the colored race, which first operated as the innew comers, however, seized with so faint a grasp strument of their destruction, and became a legacy on their rich acquisition, that a few hundred Gallic of torment to the enfranchised blacks. The fruit buccaneers were sufficient to dislodge them from of crime, in this case, as in every other, was the mouths of the Artibouite, and the two promon- misery and more crime. Every mulatto that tories that embrace the great bay which indents came into the world, was an additional enemy to the western extremity of the Island. France, ever society. Hating the superior, and despising the prone to accept established facts of such a nature, inferior class, with all the pride of the one, and and not to pry too curiously into causes, recog- all the ignorance of the other, impatient of subnized the proceedings of her lawless sons, and ordination and incapable of command, the mixed founded thereon a claim which the dialectics of race, until it had passed through the crucible of the Spanish government were unable to refute. revolution, was an all but declared enemy to the One third of the island was, therefore, ceded to her; existing order of things. They were the first to and the superior industry of the colonists she sent set the example of revolt, and driven to desperation, out, soon began to develop the immense resources no doubt, by the atrocious cruelties of their masof the soil. But the fatal impulse to which all the ters, were the first also to encourage the negroes nations of Europe have successively yielded was to the perpetration of those deeds of horror, the soon given. Cargoes of African blacks, first im- relation of which must ever form one of the most ported by the Spaniards, were not long in finding melancholy chapters of history. Nor did they their way to the French side. A vast slave popu- suffer themselves to be excelled in any species of lation, that terrible enemy, in modern times, to all villany. By their very position, indeed, they were institutions, was rapidly formed. It would be pain-enabled to perform acts of excessive wickedness ful to relate in what manner they were treated by which were denied to the blacks; and parricide their masters; but when we reflect that these were was never committed with so much profusion and descended from the friends and associates of so much recklessness as by them. But this result Monbars, the Exterminator, and a rabble of women was almost inevitable. There was scarcely a raked from the prisons, hospitals, and most abomi-single colored man who was not the offspring of nable quarters of Paris, it is easy to conceive that crime, and bred up to the licentiousness of which it was anything but paternal. What ensued he was the child. Every one of them almost was when this heterogeneous mass was leavened by a living proof of the total immorality of the island. revolutionary principles, is well known. All, at They were all-it is useless to carry on the exleast, have heard of a frightful disruption of society, ception in favor of a few individuals-ignorant, of the arming of every rank against the others, of covetous, lazy, proud, vindictive, and cruel, with confusion, war, bloodshed, alternate exhibitions of scarcely any religion, none of any value, almost patriotism and treachery, of Toussaint's heroic con- totally destitute of moral feeling. They had duct and melancholy fate, of the savage Emperor learned, however, to contemplate their own numDessalines' frightful tyranny, with its fruits, con- bers. In an ancient state, when it was proposed spiracy and assassination. A republic and a mon- to distinguish the slaves by a separate costume archy then appeared upon the scene. The former, from their masters, it was objected that they |