NIGHT AT SE A.

BY DR. DICKSON, OF LONDON.

I.

On! say not that Night wears the gloomiest hue,
But gaze on that fair sky and ocean,
And tell me if e'er was more beautiful blue,
More exquisite tints to awaken in you

The feelings of love and devotion,

Which young and ecstatic beholders confess
When Nature appears in her tenderest dress.

II.

The moon on the water voluptuously falls;
The foam round the tall vessel breaking,
At intervals shoots forth its stars, and recalls
The sparkle of lamps in imperial halls

At a feast or festival making;

Or the bright corruscations the fire-fly flings
In splendor and light from her radiant wings.

III.

And, oh, how the glorious moon brightens the spray
As the breeze freshens up on the water!
There is not a bosom to-morrow will say,
When the Day-Star appears in his flaunting array,
That his beams are more fair than the daughter
Of Night now showers o'er the tropical wave,
And the isles and the islets their light surges lave.

IV.

Even the gossamer clouds in that fairest of skies
Lend a something of beauty to soften
And sweeten the scene; for they seem to the eyes,
As in flitting and beautiful motion they rise,
Like the chariots you read of so often

In Arabic story as wafting to Heaven
The spirits of mortals whose sins are forgiven.

And the air all around is scented and sweet
With the sandal and cinnamon blossom;
And the amra and almond, with odors replete,
Give balm to the breezes they joyously meet,
And send it o'er Ocean's bosom :

And oh, how delicious these breezes are now
To the feverish lip and the burning brow!

ELDORADO: OR, ADVENTURES IN THE PATH OF EMPIRE; comprising a Voyage to California, via Panama; Life in San Francisco and Monterey; Pictures of the Gold Region, and Experiences of Mexican Travel: By BAYARD TAYLOR. In two volumes: 12mo. pp. 251, 247. New-York: G. P. PUTNAM.

We have a young America now coming forward; a young America very distinct from, altogether different from, the young America of Mr. CORNELIUS MATHEWS and the Literary World,' which gives ample promise of laying so deeply and strongly the foundations of our independent and really indigenous literature, that we no longer despair of large contributions from our country to the standard books of the world. We propose here no enumeration of these writers, and indeed we shall make no allusion now except to a little cluster of them, among which the author of 'Eldorado' is conspicuous. Of our younger poets, BAYARD TAYLOR, GEORGE H. BOKER and R. H. STODDARD are unquestionably first in genius, and have given the surest pledges of great achievements. They are all under thirty; all full of energy and ambition; and very different from each other in characteristics. BOKER is at the head of our dramatists; STODDARD the most sensuous and romantic of our lyrical poets; and TAYLOR has years ago given sonorous challenge of opposition to his taking place among the gods of song. Those who judge of him by his 'Rhymes of Travel' will be apt to do him great injustice. His best poems are not in that book, though that contains some fine imagination and delicate feeling, and the most vigorous and splendid rhetoric that any American has yet displayed in verse. But better things than he had done when that was printed, are his magnificent piece of word-painting, 'Kubleh,' and the delicious poem of ARIEL in the Cloven Pine,' (which are in the tenth edition of GRISWOLD'S Poets and Poetry of America,) and a dozen other recent effusions that we do not name because we know not where to direct the reader to find them.

As a prose writer, BAYARD TAYLOR has remarkable freshness and vivacity, toned in feeling and expression by his poetical temper and fancy; with the qualities of strong common sense and indefectable honor, and a naturalness that sustains attention and preserves the most implicit confidence. We may be mistaken, but we have an impression that no records of travel by an American have ever sold as well hitherto, as his 'Views-a-foot, or Europe Seen with a Knapsack.' This is not exactly a test of merit, as the success of certain books of travel we now think of shows very clearly; but in Mr. TAYLOR's case the triumph of the author was well deserved, and the continued demand for the work probably led to the publication of the present account of the new Dorado.

Mr. TAYLOR left his desk in the Tribune office on the 20th of June, 1849, for Chagres; crossed the Isthmus to Panama, arrived at San Francisco, visited the gold rivers and mines, was present at the convention which formed the California constitution, explored the forests and mountains of the interior, went to Mazatlan, travelled by land to Mexico, and returned to New-York by way of Vera Cruz and Mobile, having been absent between eight and nine months; in which time the extraordinary variety of his adventures, the freshness and diversity of the scenes and characters brought before him, his keen insight, quick observation, genial humor, and unfailing truth, enabled him to make a book which will become a classic in the libraries of travel, and which will for centuries continue to be one of the most frequently consulted authorities upon the early history of the Pacific empire.

6

We can enter upon no particular criticism; the brief argument' of the book which we have given will be quite sufficient to those who know the directness, elegance and naturalness of the author's manner; and we add therefore but the fact that the two volumes are in Mr. PUTNAM's best typography, and are not a little enhanced in beauty by Mr. TAYLOR's graphic illustrations with the pencil.

HINTS TOWARD REFORMS: in Lectures, Addresses, and other Writings. By Horace Greeley. New-York: HARPER AND BROTHERS.

THIS handsome, well-printed volume consists mainly of lectures before popular lyceums and young men's associations, generally those of the humbler class, existing in country villages and rural townships. They were prepared amidst the exacting calls of a laborious profession, industriously followed; yet notwithstanding the unavoidable rapidity of their composition, these lectures and addresses exhibit no marks of haste. What HORACE GREELEY states to his readers he states clearly, in good old Saxon English, which can neither be misunderstood nor evaded. It is the object of the work before us, in the words of its author, to set forth the great truths, that every human being is morally bound, by a law of our social condition, to leave the world somewhat better for his having lived in it; that no one able to earn bread has any moral right to eat without earning it; that the obligation to be industrious and useful is not invalidated by the possession of wealth nor by the generosity of wealthy relatives; that useful doing in any capacity or vocation is honorable and noble, while idleness and prodigality in whatever station of life are base and contemptible; that every one willing to work has a clear social and moral right to opportunity to labor and to secure the fair recompense of such labor, which society cannot deny him without injustice; and that these truths demand and predict a comprehensive social reform based upon and moulded by their dictates.' Beside some twenty brief reform essays, involving a great variety of popular subjects, there are eleven elaborate productions, under the following heads: The Emancipation of Labor ;''Life, the Ideal and the Actual;' 'The Formation of Character;' 'The Relations of Learning to Labor;' ' Human Life;' 'The Organization of Labor ;"Teachers and Teaching;' 'Labor's Political Economy;' 'Alcoholic Liquors, their Nature and Effects;' and 'The Social ArchitectsFOURIER.' As an example of the terseness and sententiousness of Mr. GREELEY'S style, take the subjoined passage from the lecture on the 'Emancipation of Labor:'

'UNQUESTIONABLY the Emancipation of Labor is to be effected through or in conjunction with the mental and moral improvement of the Laboring Class. So far, all are of one mind. But whoever argues thence that nothing is to be done, nor even attempted, in the way of physical or circum

stantial melioration, until the Laboring Class shall have wrought out its own thorough spiritual development and moral renovation, might as well declare himself a champion of the slave-trade at once. The internal and external renovation are each necessary to the completeness of the other. Merely lightening his tasks and enlarging his comforts will not raise a grovelling, sensual, ignorant boor to the dignity of true manhood; but no more can just and luminous ideas of his own nature, relations, duties, and destiny, be expected often to irradiate the mind of one doomed to a life of abject drudgery, penury, and privation. Tom,' said a Colonel on the Rio Grande to one of his command, how can so brave and good a soldier as you are so demean himself as to get drunk at every opportunity? Colonel!' replied the private, how can you expect all the virtues that adorn the human character for seven dollars a month? The answer, however faulty in morals, involves a grave truth. Self-respect is the shield of Virtue; Comfort and Hope are the hostages we proffer the world for our good behavior in it; take these away, and Temptation is left without counteracting force or influence. Without hope and without GoD in the world,' says an inspired apostle; let not the sequence or its significance be forgotten. Show me a community, a class, a calling, wherein poverty, discomfort, and excessive, unrewarded toil have come to be regarded as an inexorable destiny, and I will tell you that there the laws of GoD and man are sullenly defied or stupidly disregarded.

Here is a pregnant suggestion: "The appearance of one of our manufacturing villages, standing like some magical exhalation on a plat of ground perhaps familiar to my boyhood as a waste of rock or sand, is to me a cheering spectacle, not so much for what it actually is, as for what it suggests and foreshadows. I reflect by whose labor and toil all this aggregation of wealth, this immense capacity of producing more wealth have been called into existence; and I say, 'If these rugged toilers are able to accomplish so much for others, why may they not ultimately do even more for themselves? Why may not they who cut the timber, and burn the brick, and mix the mortar, and shape the ponderous machinery, ultimately build something like this of their own?' Mr. GREELEY proceeds to sketch such a village as he would have it; and certainly its advantages are abundantly apparent, saving and excepting the 'edifice intended for the permanent home of all its inhal itants.' This we believe to be an illusion; and although no wiser in our day and generation than our contemporaries, we cannot but prophesy, that no attempt at such social conglomeration of all tastes, all tempers, all impulses, and all tendencies, under one roof, will ever be found to succeed. The trials to that end, hitherto made in this country, and that on a small scale, must surely be admitted to have been signal failures. Even our excellent friends, the Shakers, with all their self-denying habits, divide into 'families,' instead of all living under one roof. In all that Mr. GREELEY says of associated effort for the good of a common community we fully concur; but we would leave the advantages thus derived to be enjoyed in separate homes. God designed homes to be many and not one only. Even in heaven, where there is no variety of human passion and infirmity, there are many mansions' for the just made perfect.' The essay on 'Ideal and Actual Life' is forcibly and felicitously written. We were much impressed with this admirable passage, illustrating the common discontent with the Actual:

"THE Swart laborer discerns the conditions of happiness only in the luxuries and dainties of the man of millions; while CRESUS, though he hugs his possessions, finds them a heavy and thorny burden. Ease, the grand desideratum, visits neither the rude pallet on which the one rests his toilworn, aching limbs, nor the downy couch whereon the other nightly struggles with the twin demons Dyspepsia and Hypochondria, to whom his sumptuous fare and exemption from physical labor have rendered him a helpless prey. O that I were a man!' cries the impatient child, then I should no more be tyrannized over, and treated as a helpless idiot! Childhood is allowed no scope- no respect; its joys are few and trifling: haste, haste! hour of my emancipation? O that I were a child again! responds the man; that this load of consuming cares and duties were lifted from my burning, boiling, half-distracted brain! Childhood! glad season of innocence and bliss! when simple life was pleasure, and any casual grief was quickly chased from the mind's dial by whole troops of dancing joys! The king often looks on the beggar with something akin to envy - he would not exchange conditions, as a whole; but he would give much, very much, to be rid, for a few days, of his tiresome, never-ending round of dull formalities, and absurd, exacting ceremonies, and unloved but inevitable associates, and harassing councils, and state dinners to be eaten with a headache instead of an appetite, and turbulent provinces, and unreasonable yet tenacious suitors, and murmuring ministers or allies, with death-warrants, demagogues, and a thousand shifting causes of life-long disquiet. He would not be a beggar - pride and fear forbid—the beggar might do very well as a king, while the king would starve as a beggar but, oh, what would he not give for a week's free roving through forest and heather, plucking the fruits fresh and juicy from the branches, instead of VOL. XXXV. 35

having them handed him, dead and tasteless, in golden vessels borne by supple slaves. Food they may still be, but that the palled appetite rejects; fruits they ceased to be when God's sky no longer bent unobstructedly above them, and the ripple of the brook and sighing of the winds through the branches blent no longer with the blithe carol of the birds all around. Not even for a king will nature be defrauded; and the truant boy, who, by long watching, has found the goldfinch's nest, shall vainly consent to sell his prize to another. The nest and its twittering tenants may be carried to my lady's window and made fast there, but that which made their charm remains with the wood and its urchin ranger.'

In the opening of the lecture on Human Life' there is a bird's-eye view of such scope and breadth, that we cannot resist the inclination to quote it:

"To the piercing gaze of an unfettered spirit, unmindful of space, which should scan it from the central orb of our system, this fair globe must afford a spectacle of strange magnificence and beauty. Rolling on, ever on, in her appointed round, the earth must present new scenes of interest and grandeur with every hour of her revolving progress: now the swarming vales of China and Japan, the sultry plains of India, with its tiger-haunted jungles, relieved by the gaunt, bleak piles of the Himmalehs, piercing the very skies with their pinnacles of eternal rock and ice; then appear the more alluring and variegated glades of Southern and Middle Europe, and with them the scorched and glowing deserts of Africa, shining in silvery worthlessness and arid desolation. The broad green belt of the billowy Atlantic now unfolds itself, and then appears the deeper green of this immense, luxuriant forest, America, with the achievements of three centuries of advancing, struggling civilization, barely sufficing to dot irregularly its eastern border, and hardly equalling in extent those prairie openings in its centre which Nature, or rather the Red Man's annual conflagration, has sufficed through many ages to hollow out by imperceptible gradations. From amid the all-embracing foliage shine forth with steady radiance, with deep serenity, the mirror-like surfaces of the Great Lakes; the last surpassing in size, profundity, and beauty; the slender threads of the Father of Waters and his far-stretching tributaries are seen disparting vales whose exuberant fertility has known no parallel since Eden; while farther on, the tremendous chains of the Andes, the Rocky Mountains, heave up their scathed and rugged sides through the surrounding seas of verdure, as if in grim and haughty defiance to the utmost fury of the lightning and the hurricane, or in scornful exultation over the crouching world at their feet. Soon the broad, placid surface of the vast, unvexed Pacific presents itself, sprinkled with isles of deepest emerald where flowers perennial bloom. And still the earth rolls on, and every hour shall bring to view fresh marvels to awaken the soul to a consciousness of the Infinite, to deepen the fervor of piety, and exalt the glory of the GREAT SUPREME.

Yet, beyond doubt, the central figure of this vast wonder-work of creation, around which all other entities and seemings cluster and revolve, 18 MAN. He is the presiding genius: the lord of the beritage. It is his presence which gives significance and interest to the landscape, which elevates fertility and beauty above barrenness and decay. Not in laughing meads nor rippling streamlets, not in broad blue lakes nor foaming cataracts; not even in these vast, eternal forests, with their cavernous depths, their waving, swelling expanse of surface, their changing garniture, so green, and now so golden; not in these, in any or all of them, does the soul of Nature find utterance. On no wild mountain-crag or lone savannah would the spirit-gaze dwell with clinging earnestness. But on the scenes of Man's earliest, sternest, most momentous conflicts with nature, with destiny, or with his own blinding, blasting evil passions; on the narrow defile where the Spartan handfull withstood the gathered might of a continent; the battle-field where a world was lost and won; on the widowed solitude wherein Rome broods disconsolate over the fading wreck of her grandeur and her power, or the wintry desolation wherein gray-haired Jerusalem crouches amid the ruins of her once impregnable towers and peerless temples; the ashes of her self-abasement trampled into her furrowed brow by the iron heel of sixty generations of tyrants. Through all circumstances, all events, this truth presents itself, that Man's being is the essential fact, his spirit the imparted vitality of the world.'

We call this very spirited English, and so we think will our readers. The lecturer goes on to depict the mastery of man over nature, to consider him as an Internal Man;' the clouds and shadows which envelope him, the sins which 'most easily beset him,' and the spiritual life by which he vindicates his God-descended soul; closing with these noble sentences: 'Happy beyond the power of evil destiny shall he be whose whole life flows on in one calm, full current of active goodness; of unceasing benevolence to Man, of unbounded reliance on GOD. Looking back in the evening of his days through the dissolving mists of the past, he shall discern in every trial, Discipline; in every sorrow, the salutary chastening of a Divine beneficence. And when the bowed frame and feeble limbs shall admonish him of failing power to execute the dictates of a still loving heart, he shall need no farther witness of the benignity of that dispensation which Sin recoils from as Death, but, pillowed on that blessed Book, whose promises have lighted the dim pathway to millions, shall sleep to be awakened in Heaven.' And with this must we close our imperfect review, leaving unnoticed many of the noteworthy themes treated of in the book, but commending them, and the volume which contains them, to the deliberate attention of our readers.