JEDUTHAN HOBBS.

A TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF A METROPOLITAN BOOK-PEDLER.

'Ir is the mind that makes the body rich;
And as the sun breaks through the darkest cloud,
So honor peereth in the meanest habit.'

SHAKSPEARE.

In his life-time, Jeduthan Hobbs had never suited himself with a dwelling-place. He was ever flitting about, like a swallow on the wing, from garret to garret. He has chambers now, against which he can never more repine. A few nails, and boards of lath, have shut out apprehension, and care, and poverty. No longer shall rich repasts, and the panorama of delicate viands, move before his eye, which his tongue may not taste. No longer shall his gaunt form traverse the pavement of public hostels, living on steams and odors. From the unceremonious touch of catchpoles, henceforth, the person of Jeduthan Hobbs is sacred.

They laid him according to his wish. He had prayed, almost to the last hour of his life, that Providence would grant him the farewell privilege of selecting a spot for his grave, which might be his own,— the first and last cantle of property he should ever possess. And at the moment when Death was holding his final parley for the surrender of his body, a missive arrived from a deceased aunt, bearing within a gift just sufficient to purchase the dying man the luxury of renting independently his last habitation.

It was chosen strangely,-one lone, solitary strip of green, imbedded in rocks. It were vain to attempt to fathom this fancy. Perhaps he wished to leave it as a testimonial,—though dark and difficult the interpretation, that thus his heart had retained its freshness and verdure, in the very midst of the rough roads and stony circumstances of life.

His face, when living, was the very dial-plate of Hope. He lived on glorious expectation. He breakfasted on hope,-dined on hope,and was even oftentimes forced, for the want of more substantial food, to make his supper from the same dish. Yet was he ever uncomplaining. He was monarch over all futurity. No black usurper dared intrude upon that ample realm. He peopled it with his own subjects. They never disobeyed his kingly authority, but ever came at his beck. How well I remember the last time I beheld him! He had just given,— poor and lowly as he was,-a cheerful volume, to a pale, attenuate young man, in a faded black coat, who had been standing at a book-stall, at the corner of the street, filching a little mental entertainment from a meagre collection of dingy tomes. Poor fellow!' said Hobbs,—' he has seen better days: but he should needs be happy now,-for I have given him a glorious companion: and I have just read to him these truth-speaking lines from good old Spenser.' And the kind donor set down his humble basket upon the pavé, and with a benevolent chuckle, read thus, from a thumbed, yellow-leaved octavo :

'Ah! why doth flesh, a bubble-glass of breath,
Hunt after honor and advancement vain,
And rear a trophy for devouring Death,
With so great labor and long-lasting pain,
As if his days forever should remain?
Sith all that in this world is great or gay,
Doth, as a vapor, vanish and decay.

'Look back who list unto the former ages,
And call to count what is of them become;
Where be those high-born men, those antique sages
Which of all grandeur knew the perfect sum?
Where those great warriors, which did overcome
The world with conquest of their might and main,
And made one mear of the earth and of their reign?'

Thus, with a fine vein of philosophy, would Hobbs beguile Penury of bitter remembrances, and rob sharp Misery of its pangs.

He would sit in his veteran arm-chair, at the end of a long summer day, and looking through the dusky panes of a narrow dormer window, point to the sun melting afar over the Jersey hills,-dropping gently and softly, as a babe to its evening slumbers. That sun,' he would exclaim, 'rises brighter to-morrow, because it rises on a happier man. My friend, I am not crack-brained nor visionary. In truth, poor denizens like me have no right to share that privilege of the titled and wealthy. But I do believe there is some great blessing in store for me, some overwhelming joy,-that, like wine on the lees, is but improving its flavor, by age, for my palate.'

But, Hobbs, how can you revel in such delights, with these wrecks about you? How can you, from a garret, like Moses from Pisgah, steal such glimpses of a promised land?'

'Do you see,' was his answer, yonder flight of birds, fanning the rosy air around the setting sun? Mark you how their wings are gilded with royal gold and purple, as they bathe themselves in the fading day-beams? So, my friend, every thought, every imagination, every common object and meaner sight, in passing through my soul, is transmuted into a precious and golden reality,-that, though it may have no existence in this world of fact, transports me into a heaven!' 'What heaven? The bigot's,-the sectarian's?'

'No, friend, there can be no heaven where dwells the bigot or the sectarian. I mean his heaven, whose tastes are refined,-whose eyes are as chrystal mirrors, reflecting joyously the Creator's little universe below, the fair scenes of Nature, and the glories of air, earth, and sea. Such alone can live in heaven. To brute minds,-minds that have no spirit, but are all sinew and flesh,-heaven would be but a 'worse hell.'

Thus have we whiled hour after hour, in pleasant converse, pilfering many a smile from the wrinkled face of Time, and smoothing the yet untrodden road to the inevitable church-yard. The vocation of my friend was a modest and humble one. He was a book-pedler. He wended from house to house,-a merchant of the mind,-bearing in his basket and pack the rich products of every clime in which intellect grows and buds.

He was born with a love for books. The first object on which his infant eyes opened, must have been the family Bible, or a copy of the household almanac. He delighted, as soon as his feeble hands could lift a volume, to gaze on its black rows of letters. When his mind expanded, its first dawnings were spent in marshaling words in order, to form some little composition.' He took a kind of military pride, in drilling the twenty four letters of the alphabet,-in banding them into petty companies. As he grew older, he assumed his calling. It was congenial, though lowly. He loved to pass from dwelling to dwelling, dealing out, as it were, delight by the handful,-handing over whole treasures of joy,-volumes of fun and knowledge. And he himself had been at the festival,-he had partaken of the feast.

He came at length to be known,—to be loved, to be welcomed. His face broadened and brightened into the sun of many a house; and wherever he threw a beam, some tender flower, or some happy sentiment, would spring and blossom. He was the sower of good seed, and he reaped the harvest that follows it.

And thus he spent twenty years. He was the father of the bookpedlers. Much they honored him and when chance had gathered a circle of them together, they listened with eager ears to his tales of the elder days of their trade, how it had begun from nothing,-how, on one bright summer morning, when he had risen early, and saw the milkmen and bakers busy distributing their comforts, the thought struck him, what a good and pleasant thing it would be, if some kind people would thus actively and alertly serve the milk and bread' of mind to as needy customers,-how the thought would every morning visit his soul,-how he gave it welcome, and, finally, how he became the pioneer in the cause,-dandling, as it were, the profession upon his knee, until it had arrived to its present manhood,-sending its missionaries into every nook and corner of the heathen city.

Farewell, Hobbs! I had said more and better things of thee, but my pen would drop nothing but tears. Farewell! Thou hast left this world of book-making, book-reading, and book-pedling, and art gone, I trust, where angels chant poetry, and the face of thy Maker shall be to thee, for perusal, thy brightest book!

M.

IS HE RICH?

He is rich in wit, he is rich in worth,
And rich in the blood of an honest birth;
He is rich in his country's heart and fame,
And rich in the thoughts that high souls claim:
He is rich in the books of the olden time,
And rich in the air of a freeman's clime.
He needs no stars to shine on his breast,
For the crimson drops of his father's crest
Fell, nobler gems, on the battle-field, ̧
Where the haughty foeman was taught to yield.
Then ask me no more, 'Is he rich in gold?"
His riches were bought,-but can ne'er be sold.

M.

THE SILENT WATER.

BY THE AUTHOR OF 'GUY RIVERS,' 'MARTIN FABER,' ETC.

How like its sure and undisturb'd retreat,
Life's sanctuary at last, secure from storm,
To the pure waters trickling at my feet,

The bending trees that overshade my form;
So far as sweetest things of earth may seem
Like those of which we dream.

Thus, to my mind, is the philosophy

The young bird teaches, who, with sudden flight
Sails far into the blue that spreads on high,

Until I lose him from my straining sight,-
With a most lofty discontent to fly,
Upward, from earth to sky.

AMERICAN LITERATURE.

NUMBER ONE.

W. G. S.

It has been, we think, somewhat erroneously assumed as a maxim, that every age receives its character and impression, either from one man, or from the combined efforts and example of a few great original geniuses. We doubt this theory. We rather believe that these men receive their character, or at least are directed in their course, by the age in which they live, and the state of society around them. They have the sagacity to perceive those great changes which are operating on the mass of mankind, the wisdom to accommodate themselves to the approaching crisis, and the talents to qualify them for taking the lead in the revolutions of literature and politics. The world must have an idol, and accordingly its admiration becomes gradually concentrated on one great man, who, by merely placing himself at the head of the current, acquires in time the glory of directing that which in fact propelled him forward in its course.

A close inquiry into these matters, will, we believe, bear us out in the opinion, that those men who, in every age, have been complimented with the glory of having impressed their character upon, and given a direction to, the literature of their times, had in truth only the sagacity to perceive the early auguries which indicated that the public taste was undergoing a great change, and to accommodate themselves to it, before it became notorious to ordinary observers. The Great Unknown, as he was erewhile called, was one of these fortunate persons. He perceived that the public had become sated with those romantic fictions, of which Mrs. Radcliffe and Charlotte Smith were the respective heroines,-one class of which consisted in appeals to the curiosity and wonder of the reader, and the other in various modifications of the passion of love. He saw, also, that the perpetual succession of wars during the latter part of the eighteenth century, had produced a martial spirit,-a romantic taste for war and adventure, and by adapting his genius to that of the age, not by attempting to direct it, achieved a reputation equalled by few of his